Chapter One
Mulder, It’s Me (1/7)
The James E Marshall Institute for Advanced Research
02:17
“We’re just going in through the front door?” Mulder asked of the pretty brunette in the passenger seat next to him with barely surpressed incredulity. She laughed sweetly. They drove through the first set of gates and past laser beams, which scanned the license plate, into what appeared to be an outer compound. Up ahead of them were a small gatehouse and a second set of, much larger, gates.
“Nobody could break into this place Agent Mulder, not even you. Now stop at the gatehouse and let me do the talking.”
Mulder did as he was told, sliding the cherry red Corolla to a halt next to the little booth. The guard came out with smile for her and a scowl for Mulder.
“Working late again Doctor?” He asked happily enough.
“You know me Graham.” Amanda Davidson replied.
“I was sorry to hear about your husband.” Graham the guard said sincerely. “It was a terrible thing, him being so young and you two just married.”
“Yeah.” Amanda said non-commitally.
“Well..” Graham responded with a sigh. The subject was left open but it obviously left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth and so Graham held up the device that he was carrying to change it. “You know the drill.” He offered it in Amanda’s direction. She smiled and placed her eye against the eyepiece.
From off to the side of her Mulder could see the beams as they traced patterns over her eyeball. Retina scan. The beams cut off and Amanda swiped her ID card through the slot. Then she spoke into a small microphone also attached to the device.
“My name is Amanda Davidson and I like fried tyres.” She leaned back and cast a smile in Mulder’s direction. She smiled up at Graham. After a few seconds of waiting a light on the device blinked green.
“A-okay.” Graham said and walked around to Mulder’s side of the car. “Would you mind stating your name for the system sir?”
Mulder looked over at Amanda questioningly, she nodded.
“It’s just for the records. I have clearance to take visitors inside.” She told him. Mulder turned back to Graham the guard and smiled.
“Jake Anderson.” He said sheepishly into the device.
“Thank you.” Graham said with an attempt at a smile. “Drive on please, and good luck Doctor.”
“Thank you Graham.” Amanda called back.
Mulder looked up at the high wall and gates as they came up before them. The stark white brick walls were twenty feet high and topped with wire fence, making them another foot taller. The gates, wrought iron with telltale wires that would pulse electricity through them when the circuit was connected, loomed imposingly before them.
“What have you got in here?” Mulder asked Amanda in a voice that was filled with awe, despite his attempts to mask it. She smiled slyly.
“Answers.” She replied. “Answers so secret that we need to hide them behind the license plate ident, retina scan, ID card, voice print ident and random passwords.”
“Not to mention electrified walls, gates and fences.” Mulder added.
“All those and more.” Amanda acknowledged. “Each wing of the facility has coded access privileges that are embedded into” she held up her hand “implants in the hands of all personnel.”
The gates before them opened and Mulder drove slowly through. The compound within the walls was huge. A central white building squatted immediately in front of them and dozens of smaller building cluttered around it. In the near distance a small plain black helicopter was taking off, several others were ‘parked’ near to it as if it were a heliport. The parking lot was full of the same type of plain dark sedans that Mulder dreaded seeing in his rear view mirror.
“The large building is the main facility, but each of the other smaller buildings houses various labs and research areas.” Amanda told him. “Over there on the left are the accommodation blocks and beyond them, houses, homes. It’s a virtual city. Many of the scientists live here because of the convenience and, of course, it helps security. Very few people actually go in and out.” She smiled and directed him around to the right, towards a car parking space.
XXxxXXxxXXxxXXxxXX
Mulder’s Apartment
02:20
Scully only listened to the answering service on Mulder’s cell phone for long enough to find out that his phone was not switched on. Having exhausted all other numbers, she dialed the number of her own apartment on the off chance that he was there. It rang a few times and then, much to her surprise, her answering machine cut in. She wondered for a second why no one had bothered to turn it off and decided to find out if anyone had been stupid enough to leave any messages for someone who’d been missing for a month. She performed the procedure for remote receiving her messages.
“You have 1 message.” The computerized voice told her flatly. Scully raised her eyebrows and listened carefully. “Tuesday 4:47 AM.”
<Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!>
“Scully,” Mulder’s voice began. “Skinner told me something today that…shit!”
The phone was slammed down. Scully’s raised eyebrows had rapidly turned into a frown. Tuesday? Not this Tuesday surely? Why would Mulder have called her machine two days ago and spoke as if she was there?
“I couldn’t get anything out of him.” Skinner informed her as he emerged from the direction of Mulder’s bathroom. He folded over the end neatly and put the roll of duct tape down onto the coffee table. For a second Scully wasn’t sure what he meant, then she remembered; the MIB.
“He was after the pyramid.” Scully stated dismissively, the frown still on her face. “Did you talk to Mulder on Tuesday?” She asked almost immediately. Skinner was taken aback by the topic shift and looked perplexed for a moment before he answered.
“Yeah, he arrived at my apartment some time in the early hours.”
“What did you tell him?” Scully’s tone was accusatory. Skinner’s expression hardened.
“The agreed story.” He bit out. “Why?”
“Tell me EXACTLY what you told him.” Scully clarified, crossing the room menacingly.
“What’s going on Scully? You’re acting like I’ve done something…”
“Just tell ME what you told HIM?” Scully’s tone sounded like a warning.
“That you knew all along about extra terrestrial life visiting this planet.” Skinner stated as he rubbed a tired hand across his smooth temple. Scully turned away rapidly.
“That would explain his tone, but not the words.” She said more to herself than to him.
“What words?! Talk to me Scully.” Skinner demanded. Scully turned back to face him.
“What do you remember?” She asked straight-faced. “About that night?”
Skinner paused with his mouth slightly open, then swallowed hard on the metaphorical golf ball that had materialized in his throat.
“I’ve tried not think about it.” He admitted. “I remember you and Mulder arriving at my apartment with Davidson. It was twilight. Mulder was excited by Davidson’s story, you didn’t look like you believed it but his story started to make sense.”
“Do you remember what he said?” Scully’s face remained a set mask, giving nothing away, forcing him to remember on his own.
“He said that the pyramid was a transmitter for talking to extra terrestrials.”
“Do you remember about the institute?” Scully prompted expressionlessly.
“The undead.” Skinner said warily, echoing Scully’s earlier choice of words. She shivered involuntarily.
“Do you remember going inside?” She asked from a long way away.
Skinner closed his eyes. In his mind’s eye he saw the massive front gates looming high above them, stark white in the moonlight.
“I remember the gates opening and the dark compound inside. I was driving. Davidson was next to me. You and Mulder were sitting in the back. I drove up to the gatehouse. The guard smiled at Davidson. He said something about him having been out working late again. There were a lot of security measures. Davidson passed them all, but we didn’t need to do anything more than say our names into machines.” Skinner smiled involuntarily. “Mulder said his name was Frank Kafka. I started the car and drove on to the second set of gates. They opened slowly, then… ” Skinner tailed off.
“Then… what?” Scully asked from above him.
“Nothing.” Skinner replied absently, then frowning. “Absolutely nothing.” He sighed. “Dark emptiness of the soul stretching into a freak oblivion that contrasts with the complexity of nature’s rich diversity.”
Scully shivered again at his words, but she knew that Skinner didn’t have any idea that he was quoting from someone they’d met inside the institute on that fateful night. She knew that should tell Skinner, and Mulder too when she found him, but she wished that the deed didn’t fall to her.
Inside his head Skinner was trapped against a blank wall, behind him was the car as it drove towards the gate and ahead of him was nothing. The memory seemed severed from his brain. He tiptoed around it and found a chink of blue light, then an echo of voices, then a cacophony of voices.
”Scully!”
“Mulder!”
“You!”
“You’re too late.”
“Let her go!”
“I don’t believe *any* of this!”
“Take me instead!”
“Mulder!”
“You lied to me!”
”What do you want with us?”
“Colonization?”
“No!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Scully!”
“No!!!!!!!!!!”
“Colonization?”
“You lied to me!”
“Let her go!”
“Scully!!!!”
“You lied to me!”
“No!!!!!!!!!”
“Scully!”
“No! Scully!” He moaned desperately, acting out the past in the present. “Let her go!”
“What do you see?” Scully’s voice asked, miles and miles away.
“The light. Scully! Get her out of the light.”
In the real world, tears began to slide down Scully’s cheeks as she watched Skinner rediscover a memory he hadn’t been allowed to have for the past month. It was a memory that she would never be allowed to forget, nor would she want to. She’d been using it to keep her strong for the duration of her time away and it was the thing that would keep her fighting the future. All that blue light around her. She could still feel the heat on her skin and the pain inside every cell in her body. The sickness burned inside her even now. Living death eating it’s way through her body.
Skinner watched helpless because of the distance of time as Scully stood bathed in the blue light. He couldn’t see the source and couldn’t remember what it was or why, but it was hurting her. He could see the blue splashes of light playing across her skin and the odd whirring of the machine that produced the light. He could hear a rumbling now. Getting louder. Louder. Then the world fell apart around him. An explosion. More light. Pain as small objects hit him. Then he was surrounded by light. He watched as his right hand sparkled with light and disappeared. He watched in horror and amazement as *his hand disappeared*.
Skinner opened his eyes and found himself staring into Scully’s. Somehow he’d ended up sitting on Mulder’s couch with Scully kneeling in front of him. Her hand rested comfortingly over his. He gripped her hand and stared further into her eyes. The liquid sheen of tears in her vivid blue eyes mirrored the tears that welled in his own.
“I thought that I remembered it all. I hardly knew anything.” He was shell-shocked even with his eyes open.
“What did you see?” She asked softly, squeezing his hand. He took a deep breath.
“I saw my hand disappear.” He stated. Scully smiled.
“Do you remember Them?” She asked softer still, with a remembered wonder.
“Who?” He returned, not remembering.
“Them!” Scully emphasized, gesturing upwards with her eyes. “The pyramid brought them to us and they saved us.”
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