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"Chermera" by Mary Ruth Keller Part 34 of 45
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Mary Keller
Sep 9, 2020, 4:33:20 PM9/9/20
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=====o============================o=====
"Chermera" by Mary Ruth Keller Part 34 of 45
E-mail: mrke...@eclipse.net, mrkel...@gmail.com
PG-13 X-File: Myth-arc Disclaimed in Part I
Already sent to Gossamer
=====o============================o=====
Office of the Lone Gunmen
Alexandria, VA
Monday, June 22, 1998
3:14 pm
John Byers leaned back from the workbench. "Okay, guys, I think we're there." He waited until the others had gathered. Clip lead in hand, he pointed at the monitor he had set up beside the tablet. "I've traced the output signal, so this will show what the screen would have. When I attach this lead, it'll be just as if the unit were fully operational. How did you know there was shape-shifter speech involved?"
Mulder extracted his cell phone. "What was that number again?" He looked to his partner.
After tugging free a small notepad from her backpack, she reached over his arm to key in the digits. He hit the dial button. A series of squeaks and whistles sounded in the room. The monitor started to display Hiragana and Katakana, top to bottom, right to left, as before.
"Get a picture." Mulder’s command was crisp. "That box will want a password here in - "
Several Katakana characters blinked on the screen, then the cursor waited. After several flashes of the Polaroid, Scully again spoke the password, but nothing happened. "Did the unit save the password in protected memory, I wonder?"
Byers frowned. "What, no good?"
Mulder shook his head. "The site we were supposed to be accessing took itself off-line as we were downloading the files you have over there. I'm surprised the number we called was still sending data."
The auburn-haired agent gripped, then released, her partner's elbow. "That means there are more operatives out there who haven't been notified of our hack. Once they are, it'll go dead, too."
The tall man turned to her. "Any luck?"
Scully nodded. "I've not translated any names yet, but the lengths are suggestive: ten bytes, fourteen bytes, all under twenty so far."
He bit his lower lip. "You're most likely right that it's common species names, Scully. At two bytes each, it's too short for a full human name in English or Japanese, which they would have needed for tracking with all the test subjects they were using." As her stomach rumbled loudly, he looked down at her slender waist.
"Sorry." She waved her free hand at him. "Let me get back to the files."
Byers disconnected himself from the anti-static pad. "Hey, no, it's nearly six. I'm assuming you two skipped lunch today?"
The partners exchanged a nod, but said nothing.
Langly ambled into the kitchen. "Okay, let's see what it will be tonight." He returned with several take-out menus. "Greek, Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Indian?"
"Indian works for me." The auburn-haired pathologist slid to her feet.
After settling on, then placing, their orders, Frohike pointed toward the living room. "Nothing so far from the camera and we have several hours of downloading to go. We have the projector and screen still set up, Mulder. We can kick back while we wait and eat."
The tall agent cocked an eyebrow at Scully, who, to his delight, nodded. "Samosas and satanic dinosaurs, here we come." He found himself unable to stop grinning.
--o-0-o--
Office of the Lone Gunmen
Alexandria, VA
Tuesday, June 23, 1998
4:32 am
Fox Mulder turned to his sleeping partner. "Hey, Scully, check this out!" She had pulled one of the armchairs into the space behind the video monitor, where she had curled into a ball against the high back. He tugged the thick white cotton of her over-sized left sock, that was hanging loosely from her toes, to shake her foot gently.
After a long breath, she opened one green-blue eye to gauge the excitement in his tone, then sat upright. "What do you have, Mulder?"
He was bouncing happily on the tall stool. "After you zoned out, Doctor, I watched through the rest of the stored video as it was being read off."
She rubbed her cheek with the back of her hand. "So you finally got to the end of the images?"
He nodded. "I got Fro to help start the program." You're beat, Scully, it's okay. "You fell asleep so fast, neither of us wanted to wake you."
She cocked her head. "Mulder, that wouldn't have been a problem. I wrote some of that code."
He grinned broadly. "Now that we have the last few minutes of imagery, you'll see." He played through the remaining frames.
"Mulder, stop. Let me have the keyboard." She rose to stand in front of the workbench, where she opened an X Window. After typing several lines of code, she keyed out several commands he failed to recognize, then ':wq'. "This will let us zoom, a bit. It won't be as good as an analogue video editor, but, it will have to do."
His chin was grazing the cotton shoulder of her polo shirt. "So, that area-" He rapped on the glass over the final video frame, still up on the screen, with his knuckle. "-you can blow that up?"
She clicked several keys, then a different window appeared. "This is digital imagery, so we'll eventually get pixelated, but, before that, we should still be able to make out details."
He grunted. "It's Amanda Edwards, Scully, and Luther, and, who's that? The guy with the straight black hair?" His nose was nearly on the glass. "Can you make it any bigger?"
She let out a choked gasp. "I know him." She reversed through the frames. "There, he faces the camera and points." Her right hand shaking, she activated the digital zoom, then jumped back as if struck. "He was there. In the warehouse. He was there."
Mulder bent over his partner, who was hugging herself. "Scully?" He reached around to steady her with a hand on her spine. "Scully, talk to me."
She closed her eyes for a long moment, then gazed up at him. "He was a technician. He was the one who administered most of the tests." She was rubbing her forehead. "His name. I heard his name so many times. But, I can't remember. Why can't I remember?"
He eased her into the armchair, then took her right hand in his left to rub the back with his right palm as he knelt in front of her. "It's okay. You'll get it, just give it a few minutes." He watched her eyes moving back and forth under closed lids. "It's okay." He wondered, briefly, whether he would need to regress her again.
But, she straightened her shoulders before speaking, her voice quiet, her tone distant. "Mister Saito. Even the doctors called him Mister." Her green-blue eyes popped open. "Nothing else. No first name." She leaned forward. "But, there was something else." Her auburn brows drew together. "He limped. One shoe, his, um, right, had a thickened sole, as if the legs were different lengths. I could only stare down, and I never wanted to see those shoes approaching me."
Fighting back the anger and anxiety coursing through him, the tall agent grasped her unbound shoulder. "You're okay, Scully. You're okay." Then, he was on his feet, his hand held toward the monitor. "Now we have something to go on."
She rose to return to the video, playing through several frames. "It's he." She rapped the screen. "See, there, see how much he wobbles, frame to frame. It's tough to make out because we're not running at video speed, but, he's limping still."
His palm landed on her spine. "This is good enough to put out a 'Wanted by' notice. We'll have Nichols alert the airports and harbors there for the few weeks prior and following Tapping's death."
Focused now, she nodded. "We won't have to consult with Pierce on this, at least immediately. The association with my kidnapping-" She paused as the long fingers curled around her side unconsciously. "-is sufficient for a justification."
--o-0-o--
X-Files East Offices / X-Files West Offices
FBI Washington Field / FBI San Diego Field
Office Office
Washington, DC / San Diego, CA
Tuesday, 11:57 am / 8:57 am
Click. Dana Scully rolled the last BNC connector in place before checking to her left. Langly, the oversized headphones clamping his long blond hair over his ears, threw her a single nod, then she tapped three keys. An image grew behind the glass.
"You getting this?" Nichols's unmistakable gravel boomed through the office.
Mulder leaned in front of the camera. "Yeah, we are. You?"
Rosen's mezzo floated out next. "Yes, everything seems to be working."
The blond Gunman cautioned from his curl in one of the Director's boxy visitor's chairs. "Remember to keep an eye on the interference monitor. That'll be our first indication someone's trying to listen in." He frowned at the laptop screen. "Okay, yak away, G-folk. Let's give this puppy a ride."
Mulder fiddled with the base of the CCD, turning the lens a bit more to face him. He ignored the frustrated sighs from his partner and the Gunman.
"Wide-angle, G-man." Langly clenched, then opened, a fist.
The dark-haired agent spoke to the image on the screen. "Tapping caught Amanda Edwards and Luther meeting with a Japanese operative, Saito, which is why he was killed. Saito was involved in Scully's abduction, so we're treating this as a Bureau matter for a couple of days. If we can present a fait accompli to Pierce, so much the better. We're sending encrypted compressed images in an E-mail so you can put out travel alerts on the guy."
A single rumble emerged first. "You feeling okay, there, Chief? That's a lot of Scully words I hear."
"Sheah, tell me about it." He sent his partner a smirk. "More to come, though. The files we downloaded were DNA sequences, of common species, so the Doctor here tells me."
'You mean t' tell me that's it?" Shiffeln's slightly nasal question had the East Coast members of the X-Team smiling, including Walter Skinner, who had been working quietly at his desk during the set-up and communications testing. "Then, I know what I'm gonna do, you Big Cheeses out there."
Now, the bald Director, who had watched over the top of his lenses while the gleaming surface of his spotless, scuff-free conference table was laden with cables, test equipment, and three separate computers, felt compelled to join the discussion. "So, Rob, what are you going to do?"
"Once we're done wit' the background reviews, I'm quittin' the Bureau. You said it yourself, Walt, they can access my personnel file anytime they want. It'll take a lotta background months before we can make this collar. I'm goin' to join a few of these Earth Firster groups, do some protestin' of the alien menace. That way it'll look right when I apply for one of them Consortium jobs. Better benefits than the Bureau, for all it matters to me. One trip east to go over the documents you guys have wit' you, pick your brains for what I need to know, then I'll resign. Get things moving."
"Hey, Langly, I'm starting to see some activity." Rosen frowned at the displayed traces. "Should we shut the session down?"
"No, let me check this." He tapped a few keys, then waved to the auburn-haired agent. "Doc, try that second encryption algorithm of yours. Let's see how it works." He leaned toward the microphone. "You got that, Rosen?"
"Yes, two encryption levels?"
Several clicks from the Dell on the conference table. "How about now?"
"Yeah, that did it." The brunette astronomer sounded much relieved. "What do you think it means?"
"We're being traced, but it's not Lady Lovelace." Langly opened a different window. "Running tracking software right now." He dropped out of his curl. "That's got it." His eyes rolled back and forth behind the glasses. "Okay, Bonn. That's where the call originated."
"So, the Europeans are showing their hand." Scully looked over at her partner. "It was only a matter of time before they did." She turned to the long-haired Gunman. "We'll have to institute randomized encryptions to keep them off-guard."
Langly nodded. "Let me take this back to the nest and we'll tweak the codes." He crossed the room to lean over the table. "You got that?"
Nichols huffed. "Sure do. We have the E-mail, according to Ros, so we'll let you know Rob's schedule when we can do so safely. Sure hope you bright boys and girls get this working. It's easier than stuffing ourselves in flying sardine cans."
"I hear that." Mulder nodded. "We're signing off now?" He checked the faces in the room, seeing only nods. "Okay, signing off."
His jacket draped precisely evenly over the back of his chair, the bald Director was standing in his shirtsleeves at the head of the conference table as the screen went dark. "So, how long will all this have to sit here?"
Langly shook his head, emptying his mind of Walter Skinner's lean silhouette. "We'll clear most of it off for today. If the G-man can excise the stacks on his table, we can move operations in there. This was just convenient."
The dark-haired man chuckled. "Finally, there's a downside to all that cleanliness and godliness, Sir."
The Assistant Director merely cocked an eyebrow at his agent as the pathologist and the Gunman began breaking down the systems.
--o-0-o--
S. Dillon Ripley Center
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC
Wednesday, June 24, 1998
6:33 pm
Dana Scully glanced back at the line forming behind her. "I had expected a lecture at a University, not this." The persons standing were, for the most part, well-dressed professionals, some retired, some close. There were two brown tables set up, with two women at each waiting to take or sell tickets. A tall man with thinning red hair wearing a grey tweed suit stepped up to one of the women, who nodded, then pointed at the waiting agents.
Mulder offered a lop-sided grin. "Wilson?" He extended his hand. "How much do you stand to make off this gig?"
A quiet smile appeared under the ginger mustache. "More than you think, if I sell some books." He grasped the long fingers gladly, then clapped Mulder on the spine. "Fox, you didn't have to come to this. We could have met up for dinner afterward."
The tall agent stepped back. "Just wanted to see how you were entertaining the masses." He held his arm toward the diminutive woman. "This is my partner at the FBI, Doctor Dana Katherine Scully, forensic pathologist. Scully, this is Doctor Wilson Reginald Russell Thornton, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History, Christ Church."
She shook the extended hand firmly. "Good to meet you, Sir."
Thornton tossed a glance at Mulder. "Sir? What have you been telling her? You two make me sound respectable, almost." One of the women was tapping his shoulder. "Sorry, that's my cue. Wait for me afterward, alright?"
As the agents made their way to seats in the front, Scully leaned toward her partner. "So, he threw the R.R. around a lot?"
Bending over her, he chuckled. "In every pub we visited."
She cocked her gaze up at him. "You don't seem like a pub-crawler, Mulder."
Suddenly serious, he pointed to her seat. "Had to do something after Phoebs. But, beer is savored across the Pond. They even bring the kids. Not like here." They lowered spring-mounted cushions, then settled in.
She considered this nugget of self-revelation as they waited. As much as Phoebe Green had tormented her partner for her own amusement, their relationship, if it could be called that, would have provided a steady human connection for the quiet, sober boy-man she imagined would have shown up at Oxford. {Especially after that childhood from hell.} She shifted a fraction of an inch closer to a muscled arm, prompting a similar motion on his part, after a swift grin was wafted down at her.
Once the auditorium had quieted, Thornton stepped up to the lectern, activated the projector, then took a practiced, deep breath. "Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasons, Order of the Rosy Cross, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and so many other names are familiar to you from countless movies and novels. But, what is the real story behind all these secret societies and clandestine gatherings and rituals?"
Mulder bent close to Scully's ear. "Here we go..."
--o-0-o--
S. Dillon Ripley Center
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC
Wednesday, 9:47 pm
"Thank you, glad you enjoyed it." Thornton scrawled his name on the frontispiece, wrapping the signature around the head of his portrait, then shook the hand of a tiny woman in a black dress. As she turned away, he saw she was the last, so he looked up at Mulder. "See, not so bad. If you'd stayed for your PhD, you could be on the lecture circuit yourself, Fox."
The tall man sent a rueful grin to his partner before shaking his head. "Yeah, liver-eating mutants and flukemen will bring'em running."
Thornton bit his lip before smiling gently at the auburn-haired agent. "I’m sorry, with this jet-lag, it’s slipped my mind. What was your specialty again, Doctor Scully?"
One cheek creased. "I'm a forensic pathologist, Sir."
The red-haired man bent over her. "Now, let's stop this Sir nonsense, alright? You make me feel like my father. Just call me Wilson, or, Wil, if you prefer."
She tucked her chin. "Thank you. I didn't want to presume."
Thornton turned to Mulder. "What about a quick bite, hum?"
The tall agent shook his head. "DC is an early-bird town, Wilson, not like London. But, if we could twist your arm, we have something we'd like to discuss with you outside, if you don't mind."
"Ah. Let me get my notes and take care of a few essentials."
Once the three were settled on the benches in front of the pink granite palazzo that is the Freer Gallery, Scully slipped the strap of the laptop case off her right shoulder, rested the bag on the slats beside her, unzipped it, lifted the computer screen, then logged in. "What do you know about this organization?" She rotated the unit so he could read the windowed text.
Thorton's green eyes widened. "Them?" His astonished gaze met each of theirs in turn. "You have information on them?" He shifted the laptop to his knees, then began scrolling. "How?" He lost himself in reading for several minutes. Setting the black machine down in the case, he rubbed his face. "That amount of insider knowledge. Where did you find this? This is a lifetime's of study."
Mulder rested his elbows on his knees. "My Dad, actually. Apparently, he was close to the inner circle."
The red-haired man leaned closer. "Oh, Fox, he wasn't one of the Forty themselves, was he?"
Scully shook her head. "No, but he was one step removed. According to the encrypted notes he left, he was an Atrebates. He also had a rising sun tattoo with twenty straight rays on his inside right wrist. He worked with a woman named Christina Knox, who was from Gdansk."
Thornton chewed his lower lip as he thought. "She was the Slav, then." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, but from what little I know, each member of the Forty was named for a specific ethnic group, either from Europe or a part of the former Empire. They passed themselves off as universalists, representative of all humanity, but, that was before genetics started being researched. You've heard of the Cenél nÓengusa family of schools?"
Mulder nodded. "That's a charity of theirs?"
The red-haired man held up both hands. "They do good work, but not hospitals like the Shriners. They emphasize setting up education and family centers all over the Third World, but, they're exceptionally reclusive. They have a long past, older than the Freemasons, but they make no real effort to recruit followers. Instead, they make and enlist allies for support, and, from what I can tell, in very, very high places." He waved down the Mall toward the Capitol dome, as the last of the nautical twilight illuminated it, then the spotlights began glowing. "I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have contacts over there, even." He touched the laptop. "Could I possibly get a copy of this?"
Scully tried to reach for an inner flap with her left hand, then hissed. "Sorry. We brought a CD set in case you wanted one. We're trying to spread the information we acquired to as many interested parties as possible. We don't want to go fully public until we understand how reliable these data are."
"Let me, Agent Scully." Thornton slid the enclosed disks out. "This is amazing. This is just amazing." He tucked the sleeves in his briefcase. "Better than dinner."
Mulder grinned. "We can still do that, too. I know just the place." He reached across his partner to fold away the laptop, then enclose it in its bag.
--o-0-o--
X-Files East Offices
FBI Washington Field Office
Washington, DC
Thursday, June 25, 1998
8:41 am
"So, that's what I think we need to go over with Shiffeln when he arrives tomorrow." Mulder added the last folder to the stack.
Dana Scully, the pristine white shell loose over her charcoal grey slacks and flats, was perched carefully on a wooden chair in front of her partner's desk. "I think we had only half of those materials when I set Rosen up to read through the X-Files, the D'Amato papers, and that reconstructed document, Mulder. Director Skinner will add his own observations, of course, but we'll have Shiffeln ready for his undercover assignment once he works his way through all these." She rubbed the gauze over her shoulder. Her partner was still in his black jacket and long-sleeved white button-down shirt, but her right arm were bare, so she shivered slightly in the air conditioning. "Plus, we'll have assembled the materials we'll need Bill Stickle to review when he joins us after Fourth of July."
He leaned back to cross his ankles on the desktop. "Might be good to hand them to Pendrell and Phillips when they get back on the thirteenth."
The auburn-haired agent nodded. "It looks like we've started assembling our training manual for new X-Files agents." She shifted the chair to the left with her feet. "Sorry, right under a duct. I can't check with Mister ap Gwinn until the fifteenth."
He was playing with the pencils on his desk. "So, looks like we can take a little down-time in a couple of weeks ourselves, Scully."
She leaned forward. "You've found something?" Her eagerness prompted a quick tweak of his lips.
He shrugged. "My usual sources have gone dark on me." His eyes traveled unconsciously to the NICAP hat on the coat rack.
She twisted on the chair, then, with a tiny sigh, rose to settle into her Father's recliner, tucking herself into a tight ball. "Nothing on the wires? No serial killers who hear commands from the trees?"
He shook his head.
"No multiplex projectionist who control magnetic fields with his mind?"
He was grinning. "Now, you're just making stuff up, Scully."
"Then, Mulder, let *me* suggest a destination."
His feet dropped to the floor. "You want me to take Sandra to Santorini, don't you?"
She sent him one of her full-wattage smiles. "Of course, Mulder. Caroline must be beside herself with anticipation, don't you think?"
He fiddled with the stack of folders they had just assembled. "Yeah, I do. Sandra's working on papers, but she's not teaching any summer session classes, she told us at dinner. If we don't take the time, we won't have it. The Shadows will throw some new scheme at us, or those field-altering projectionists of yours will appear, or we'll discover that the Forty secretly manipulated the League of Nations so that it collapsed, and the opportunity will be gone. Mom's not getting any younger, either."
She slid off the recliner to lean on the desk beside him. "You were already considering this, weren't you? Even before I brought it up?"
His expression deeply somber, he focused up on her face. "Yeah, Scully, I was, but, it's not right to dump everything on you and take off." His gaze canted toward her bandages. "Not now, not ever, and certainly not anymore."
She turned to rest her right hand on his shoulder. "Mulder, this is the time for your family to be together, as much as you can. I appreciate your concern, I do, but I'll be fine. We're only talking a couple of weeks, not months, like before. How much work could there be?" She settled back on the wooden chair. "Give Sandra a call. She must have been thinking about this, too. Make specific arrival and departure dates so this doesn't grow out of all proportion. It'll make it easier for Caroline and Max. They were such gracious hosts with me, but they were really tired by the end, I could tell. As you said, they're no spring chickens anymore."
{We all just wanted you to be well, Scully.} He walked around the desk to lean against it, then curl over her. "You'll be okay, really?" The question fell into a near whisper at the end.
She flexed her left hand. "The physical therapy has kept the muscles from atrophying too much as I healed. In a week or so, I'll stop being Queen Hatshepsut's mummy, Mulder, and I'll be spending time at the shooting range, getting requalified with my weapon. When you get back, that Mesmerist projectionist will have to watch out." She reached out to pat his fingers, hooked, as they were, over the thick edge of the battered desktop.
--o-0-o--
End – Chermera – Part 34 of 45
"Chermera" by Mary Ruth Keller Part 34 of 45
E-mail: mrke...@eclipse.net, mrkel...@gmail.com
PG-13 X-File: Myth-arc Disclaimed in Part I
Already sent to Gossamer
=====o============================o=====
Office of the Lone Gunmen
Alexandria, VA
Monday, June 22, 1998
3:14 pm
John Byers leaned back from the workbench. "Okay, guys, I think we're there." He waited until the others had gathered. Clip lead in hand, he pointed at the monitor he had set up beside the tablet. "I've traced the output signal, so this will show what the screen would have. When I attach this lead, it'll be just as if the unit were fully operational. How did you know there was shape-shifter speech involved?"
Mulder extracted his cell phone. "What was that number again?" He looked to his partner.
After tugging free a small notepad from her backpack, she reached over his arm to key in the digits. He hit the dial button. A series of squeaks and whistles sounded in the room. The monitor started to display Hiragana and Katakana, top to bottom, right to left, as before.
"Get a picture." Mulder’s command was crisp. "That box will want a password here in - "
Several Katakana characters blinked on the screen, then the cursor waited. After several flashes of the Polaroid, Scully again spoke the password, but nothing happened. "Did the unit save the password in protected memory, I wonder?"
Byers frowned. "What, no good?"
Mulder shook his head. "The site we were supposed to be accessing took itself off-line as we were downloading the files you have over there. I'm surprised the number we called was still sending data."
The auburn-haired agent gripped, then released, her partner's elbow. "That means there are more operatives out there who haven't been notified of our hack. Once they are, it'll go dead, too."
The tall man turned to her. "Any luck?"
Scully nodded. "I've not translated any names yet, but the lengths are suggestive: ten bytes, fourteen bytes, all under twenty so far."
He bit his lower lip. "You're most likely right that it's common species names, Scully. At two bytes each, it's too short for a full human name in English or Japanese, which they would have needed for tracking with all the test subjects they were using." As her stomach rumbled loudly, he looked down at her slender waist.
"Sorry." She waved her free hand at him. "Let me get back to the files."
Byers disconnected himself from the anti-static pad. "Hey, no, it's nearly six. I'm assuming you two skipped lunch today?"
The partners exchanged a nod, but said nothing.
Langly ambled into the kitchen. "Okay, let's see what it will be tonight." He returned with several take-out menus. "Greek, Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Indian?"
"Indian works for me." The auburn-haired pathologist slid to her feet.
After settling on, then placing, their orders, Frohike pointed toward the living room. "Nothing so far from the camera and we have several hours of downloading to go. We have the projector and screen still set up, Mulder. We can kick back while we wait and eat."
The tall agent cocked an eyebrow at Scully, who, to his delight, nodded. "Samosas and satanic dinosaurs, here we come." He found himself unable to stop grinning.
--o-0-o--
Office of the Lone Gunmen
Alexandria, VA
Tuesday, June 23, 1998
4:32 am
Fox Mulder turned to his sleeping partner. "Hey, Scully, check this out!" She had pulled one of the armchairs into the space behind the video monitor, where she had curled into a ball against the high back. He tugged the thick white cotton of her over-sized left sock, that was hanging loosely from her toes, to shake her foot gently.
After a long breath, she opened one green-blue eye to gauge the excitement in his tone, then sat upright. "What do you have, Mulder?"
He was bouncing happily on the tall stool. "After you zoned out, Doctor, I watched through the rest of the stored video as it was being read off."
She rubbed her cheek with the back of her hand. "So you finally got to the end of the images?"
He nodded. "I got Fro to help start the program." You're beat, Scully, it's okay. "You fell asleep so fast, neither of us wanted to wake you."
She cocked her head. "Mulder, that wouldn't have been a problem. I wrote some of that code."
He grinned broadly. "Now that we have the last few minutes of imagery, you'll see." He played through the remaining frames.
"Mulder, stop. Let me have the keyboard." She rose to stand in front of the workbench, where she opened an X Window. After typing several lines of code, she keyed out several commands he failed to recognize, then ':wq'. "This will let us zoom, a bit. It won't be as good as an analogue video editor, but, it will have to do."
His chin was grazing the cotton shoulder of her polo shirt. "So, that area-" He rapped on the glass over the final video frame, still up on the screen, with his knuckle. "-you can blow that up?"
She clicked several keys, then a different window appeared. "This is digital imagery, so we'll eventually get pixelated, but, before that, we should still be able to make out details."
He grunted. "It's Amanda Edwards, Scully, and Luther, and, who's that? The guy with the straight black hair?" His nose was nearly on the glass. "Can you make it any bigger?"
She let out a choked gasp. "I know him." She reversed through the frames. "There, he faces the camera and points." Her right hand shaking, she activated the digital zoom, then jumped back as if struck. "He was there. In the warehouse. He was there."
Mulder bent over his partner, who was hugging herself. "Scully?" He reached around to steady her with a hand on her spine. "Scully, talk to me."
She closed her eyes for a long moment, then gazed up at him. "He was a technician. He was the one who administered most of the tests." She was rubbing her forehead. "His name. I heard his name so many times. But, I can't remember. Why can't I remember?"
He eased her into the armchair, then took her right hand in his left to rub the back with his right palm as he knelt in front of her. "It's okay. You'll get it, just give it a few minutes." He watched her eyes moving back and forth under closed lids. "It's okay." He wondered, briefly, whether he would need to regress her again.
But, she straightened her shoulders before speaking, her voice quiet, her tone distant. "Mister Saito. Even the doctors called him Mister." Her green-blue eyes popped open. "Nothing else. No first name." She leaned forward. "But, there was something else." Her auburn brows drew together. "He limped. One shoe, his, um, right, had a thickened sole, as if the legs were different lengths. I could only stare down, and I never wanted to see those shoes approaching me."
Fighting back the anger and anxiety coursing through him, the tall agent grasped her unbound shoulder. "You're okay, Scully. You're okay." Then, he was on his feet, his hand held toward the monitor. "Now we have something to go on."
She rose to return to the video, playing through several frames. "It's he." She rapped the screen. "See, there, see how much he wobbles, frame to frame. It's tough to make out because we're not running at video speed, but, he's limping still."
His palm landed on her spine. "This is good enough to put out a 'Wanted by' notice. We'll have Nichols alert the airports and harbors there for the few weeks prior and following Tapping's death."
Focused now, she nodded. "We won't have to consult with Pierce on this, at least immediately. The association with my kidnapping-" She paused as the long fingers curled around her side unconsciously. "-is sufficient for a justification."
--o-0-o--
X-Files East Offices / X-Files West Offices
FBI Washington Field / FBI San Diego Field
Office Office
Washington, DC / San Diego, CA
Tuesday, 11:57 am / 8:57 am
Click. Dana Scully rolled the last BNC connector in place before checking to her left. Langly, the oversized headphones clamping his long blond hair over his ears, threw her a single nod, then she tapped three keys. An image grew behind the glass.
"You getting this?" Nichols's unmistakable gravel boomed through the office.
Mulder leaned in front of the camera. "Yeah, we are. You?"
Rosen's mezzo floated out next. "Yes, everything seems to be working."
The blond Gunman cautioned from his curl in one of the Director's boxy visitor's chairs. "Remember to keep an eye on the interference monitor. That'll be our first indication someone's trying to listen in." He frowned at the laptop screen. "Okay, yak away, G-folk. Let's give this puppy a ride."
Mulder fiddled with the base of the CCD, turning the lens a bit more to face him. He ignored the frustrated sighs from his partner and the Gunman.
"Wide-angle, G-man." Langly clenched, then opened, a fist.
The dark-haired agent spoke to the image on the screen. "Tapping caught Amanda Edwards and Luther meeting with a Japanese operative, Saito, which is why he was killed. Saito was involved in Scully's abduction, so we're treating this as a Bureau matter for a couple of days. If we can present a fait accompli to Pierce, so much the better. We're sending encrypted compressed images in an E-mail so you can put out travel alerts on the guy."
A single rumble emerged first. "You feeling okay, there, Chief? That's a lot of Scully words I hear."
"Sheah, tell me about it." He sent his partner a smirk. "More to come, though. The files we downloaded were DNA sequences, of common species, so the Doctor here tells me."
'You mean t' tell me that's it?" Shiffeln's slightly nasal question had the East Coast members of the X-Team smiling, including Walter Skinner, who had been working quietly at his desk during the set-up and communications testing. "Then, I know what I'm gonna do, you Big Cheeses out there."
Now, the bald Director, who had watched over the top of his lenses while the gleaming surface of his spotless, scuff-free conference table was laden with cables, test equipment, and three separate computers, felt compelled to join the discussion. "So, Rob, what are you going to do?"
"Once we're done wit' the background reviews, I'm quittin' the Bureau. You said it yourself, Walt, they can access my personnel file anytime they want. It'll take a lotta background months before we can make this collar. I'm goin' to join a few of these Earth Firster groups, do some protestin' of the alien menace. That way it'll look right when I apply for one of them Consortium jobs. Better benefits than the Bureau, for all it matters to me. One trip east to go over the documents you guys have wit' you, pick your brains for what I need to know, then I'll resign. Get things moving."
"Hey, Langly, I'm starting to see some activity." Rosen frowned at the displayed traces. "Should we shut the session down?"
"No, let me check this." He tapped a few keys, then waved to the auburn-haired agent. "Doc, try that second encryption algorithm of yours. Let's see how it works." He leaned toward the microphone. "You got that, Rosen?"
"Yes, two encryption levels?"
Several clicks from the Dell on the conference table. "How about now?"
"Yeah, that did it." The brunette astronomer sounded much relieved. "What do you think it means?"
"We're being traced, but it's not Lady Lovelace." Langly opened a different window. "Running tracking software right now." He dropped out of his curl. "That's got it." His eyes rolled back and forth behind the glasses. "Okay, Bonn. That's where the call originated."
"So, the Europeans are showing their hand." Scully looked over at her partner. "It was only a matter of time before they did." She turned to the long-haired Gunman. "We'll have to institute randomized encryptions to keep them off-guard."
Langly nodded. "Let me take this back to the nest and we'll tweak the codes." He crossed the room to lean over the table. "You got that?"
Nichols huffed. "Sure do. We have the E-mail, according to Ros, so we'll let you know Rob's schedule when we can do so safely. Sure hope you bright boys and girls get this working. It's easier than stuffing ourselves in flying sardine cans."
"I hear that." Mulder nodded. "We're signing off now?" He checked the faces in the room, seeing only nods. "Okay, signing off."
His jacket draped precisely evenly over the back of his chair, the bald Director was standing in his shirtsleeves at the head of the conference table as the screen went dark. "So, how long will all this have to sit here?"
Langly shook his head, emptying his mind of Walter Skinner's lean silhouette. "We'll clear most of it off for today. If the G-man can excise the stacks on his table, we can move operations in there. This was just convenient."
The dark-haired man chuckled. "Finally, there's a downside to all that cleanliness and godliness, Sir."
The Assistant Director merely cocked an eyebrow at his agent as the pathologist and the Gunman began breaking down the systems.
--o-0-o--
S. Dillon Ripley Center
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC
Wednesday, June 24, 1998
6:33 pm
Dana Scully glanced back at the line forming behind her. "I had expected a lecture at a University, not this." The persons standing were, for the most part, well-dressed professionals, some retired, some close. There were two brown tables set up, with two women at each waiting to take or sell tickets. A tall man with thinning red hair wearing a grey tweed suit stepped up to one of the women, who nodded, then pointed at the waiting agents.
Mulder offered a lop-sided grin. "Wilson?" He extended his hand. "How much do you stand to make off this gig?"
A quiet smile appeared under the ginger mustache. "More than you think, if I sell some books." He grasped the long fingers gladly, then clapped Mulder on the spine. "Fox, you didn't have to come to this. We could have met up for dinner afterward."
The tall agent stepped back. "Just wanted to see how you were entertaining the masses." He held his arm toward the diminutive woman. "This is my partner at the FBI, Doctor Dana Katherine Scully, forensic pathologist. Scully, this is Doctor Wilson Reginald Russell Thornton, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History, Christ Church."
She shook the extended hand firmly. "Good to meet you, Sir."
Thornton tossed a glance at Mulder. "Sir? What have you been telling her? You two make me sound respectable, almost." One of the women was tapping his shoulder. "Sorry, that's my cue. Wait for me afterward, alright?"
As the agents made their way to seats in the front, Scully leaned toward her partner. "So, he threw the R.R. around a lot?"
Bending over her, he chuckled. "In every pub we visited."
She cocked her gaze up at him. "You don't seem like a pub-crawler, Mulder."
Suddenly serious, he pointed to her seat. "Had to do something after Phoebs. But, beer is savored across the Pond. They even bring the kids. Not like here." They lowered spring-mounted cushions, then settled in.
She considered this nugget of self-revelation as they waited. As much as Phoebe Green had tormented her partner for her own amusement, their relationship, if it could be called that, would have provided a steady human connection for the quiet, sober boy-man she imagined would have shown up at Oxford. {Especially after that childhood from hell.} She shifted a fraction of an inch closer to a muscled arm, prompting a similar motion on his part, after a swift grin was wafted down at her.
Once the auditorium had quieted, Thornton stepped up to the lectern, activated the projector, then took a practiced, deep breath. "Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasons, Order of the Rosy Cross, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and so many other names are familiar to you from countless movies and novels. But, what is the real story behind all these secret societies and clandestine gatherings and rituals?"
Mulder bent close to Scully's ear. "Here we go..."
--o-0-o--
S. Dillon Ripley Center
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC
Wednesday, 9:47 pm
"Thank you, glad you enjoyed it." Thornton scrawled his name on the frontispiece, wrapping the signature around the head of his portrait, then shook the hand of a tiny woman in a black dress. As she turned away, he saw she was the last, so he looked up at Mulder. "See, not so bad. If you'd stayed for your PhD, you could be on the lecture circuit yourself, Fox."
The tall man sent a rueful grin to his partner before shaking his head. "Yeah, liver-eating mutants and flukemen will bring'em running."
Thornton bit his lip before smiling gently at the auburn-haired agent. "I’m sorry, with this jet-lag, it’s slipped my mind. What was your specialty again, Doctor Scully?"
One cheek creased. "I'm a forensic pathologist, Sir."
The red-haired man bent over her. "Now, let's stop this Sir nonsense, alright? You make me feel like my father. Just call me Wilson, or, Wil, if you prefer."
She tucked her chin. "Thank you. I didn't want to presume."
Thornton turned to Mulder. "What about a quick bite, hum?"
The tall agent shook his head. "DC is an early-bird town, Wilson, not like London. But, if we could twist your arm, we have something we'd like to discuss with you outside, if you don't mind."
"Ah. Let me get my notes and take care of a few essentials."
Once the three were settled on the benches in front of the pink granite palazzo that is the Freer Gallery, Scully slipped the strap of the laptop case off her right shoulder, rested the bag on the slats beside her, unzipped it, lifted the computer screen, then logged in. "What do you know about this organization?" She rotated the unit so he could read the windowed text.
Thorton's green eyes widened. "Them?" His astonished gaze met each of theirs in turn. "You have information on them?" He shifted the laptop to his knees, then began scrolling. "How?" He lost himself in reading for several minutes. Setting the black machine down in the case, he rubbed his face. "That amount of insider knowledge. Where did you find this? This is a lifetime's of study."
Mulder rested his elbows on his knees. "My Dad, actually. Apparently, he was close to the inner circle."
The red-haired man leaned closer. "Oh, Fox, he wasn't one of the Forty themselves, was he?"
Scully shook her head. "No, but he was one step removed. According to the encrypted notes he left, he was an Atrebates. He also had a rising sun tattoo with twenty straight rays on his inside right wrist. He worked with a woman named Christina Knox, who was from Gdansk."
Thornton chewed his lower lip as he thought. "She was the Slav, then." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, but from what little I know, each member of the Forty was named for a specific ethnic group, either from Europe or a part of the former Empire. They passed themselves off as universalists, representative of all humanity, but, that was before genetics started being researched. You've heard of the Cenél nÓengusa family of schools?"
Mulder nodded. "That's a charity of theirs?"
The red-haired man held up both hands. "They do good work, but not hospitals like the Shriners. They emphasize setting up education and family centers all over the Third World, but, they're exceptionally reclusive. They have a long past, older than the Freemasons, but they make no real effort to recruit followers. Instead, they make and enlist allies for support, and, from what I can tell, in very, very high places." He waved down the Mall toward the Capitol dome, as the last of the nautical twilight illuminated it, then the spotlights began glowing. "I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have contacts over there, even." He touched the laptop. "Could I possibly get a copy of this?"
Scully tried to reach for an inner flap with her left hand, then hissed. "Sorry. We brought a CD set in case you wanted one. We're trying to spread the information we acquired to as many interested parties as possible. We don't want to go fully public until we understand how reliable these data are."
"Let me, Agent Scully." Thornton slid the enclosed disks out. "This is amazing. This is just amazing." He tucked the sleeves in his briefcase. "Better than dinner."
Mulder grinned. "We can still do that, too. I know just the place." He reached across his partner to fold away the laptop, then enclose it in its bag.
--o-0-o--
X-Files East Offices
FBI Washington Field Office
Washington, DC
Thursday, June 25, 1998
8:41 am
"So, that's what I think we need to go over with Shiffeln when he arrives tomorrow." Mulder added the last folder to the stack.
Dana Scully, the pristine white shell loose over her charcoal grey slacks and flats, was perched carefully on a wooden chair in front of her partner's desk. "I think we had only half of those materials when I set Rosen up to read through the X-Files, the D'Amato papers, and that reconstructed document, Mulder. Director Skinner will add his own observations, of course, but we'll have Shiffeln ready for his undercover assignment once he works his way through all these." She rubbed the gauze over her shoulder. Her partner was still in his black jacket and long-sleeved white button-down shirt, but her right arm were bare, so she shivered slightly in the air conditioning. "Plus, we'll have assembled the materials we'll need Bill Stickle to review when he joins us after Fourth of July."
He leaned back to cross his ankles on the desktop. "Might be good to hand them to Pendrell and Phillips when they get back on the thirteenth."
The auburn-haired agent nodded. "It looks like we've started assembling our training manual for new X-Files agents." She shifted the chair to the left with her feet. "Sorry, right under a duct. I can't check with Mister ap Gwinn until the fifteenth."
He was playing with the pencils on his desk. "So, looks like we can take a little down-time in a couple of weeks ourselves, Scully."
She leaned forward. "You've found something?" Her eagerness prompted a quick tweak of his lips.
He shrugged. "My usual sources have gone dark on me." His eyes traveled unconsciously to the NICAP hat on the coat rack.
She twisted on the chair, then, with a tiny sigh, rose to settle into her Father's recliner, tucking herself into a tight ball. "Nothing on the wires? No serial killers who hear commands from the trees?"
He shook his head.
"No multiplex projectionist who control magnetic fields with his mind?"
He was grinning. "Now, you're just making stuff up, Scully."
"Then, Mulder, let *me* suggest a destination."
His feet dropped to the floor. "You want me to take Sandra to Santorini, don't you?"
She sent him one of her full-wattage smiles. "Of course, Mulder. Caroline must be beside herself with anticipation, don't you think?"
He fiddled with the stack of folders they had just assembled. "Yeah, I do. Sandra's working on papers, but she's not teaching any summer session classes, she told us at dinner. If we don't take the time, we won't have it. The Shadows will throw some new scheme at us, or those field-altering projectionists of yours will appear, or we'll discover that the Forty secretly manipulated the League of Nations so that it collapsed, and the opportunity will be gone. Mom's not getting any younger, either."
She slid off the recliner to lean on the desk beside him. "You were already considering this, weren't you? Even before I brought it up?"
His expression deeply somber, he focused up on her face. "Yeah, Scully, I was, but, it's not right to dump everything on you and take off." His gaze canted toward her bandages. "Not now, not ever, and certainly not anymore."
She turned to rest her right hand on his shoulder. "Mulder, this is the time for your family to be together, as much as you can. I appreciate your concern, I do, but I'll be fine. We're only talking a couple of weeks, not months, like before. How much work could there be?" She settled back on the wooden chair. "Give Sandra a call. She must have been thinking about this, too. Make specific arrival and departure dates so this doesn't grow out of all proportion. It'll make it easier for Caroline and Max. They were such gracious hosts with me, but they were really tired by the end, I could tell. As you said, they're no spring chickens anymore."
{We all just wanted you to be well, Scully.} He walked around the desk to lean against it, then curl over her. "You'll be okay, really?" The question fell into a near whisper at the end.
She flexed her left hand. "The physical therapy has kept the muscles from atrophying too much as I healed. In a week or so, I'll stop being Queen Hatshepsut's mummy, Mulder, and I'll be spending time at the shooting range, getting requalified with my weapon. When you get back, that Mesmerist projectionist will have to watch out." She reached out to pat his fingers, hooked, as they were, over the thick edge of the battered desktop.
--o-0-o--
End – Chermera – Part 34 of 45
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