X-Seven Trilogy/1

=Saturday, March 26, 2005= Fox Mulder closes the door to his motel room (number 242) and starts to stride down the hallway towards the stairs. His steps become hesitant and he starts to look around....up, left, right, back over his shoulder. He stops in front of a small cabinet in the wall and opens the small door that gives access to a fire extinguisher. Fox takes the magnetic key card for his room's door lock out of his shirt pocket and slips it behind the fire extinguisher.

Fox is in a hurry to get to the evening session of the MUFON conference, but his paranoia is automatic. Fox is expecting trouble tonight; the culmination of weeks of hard work to set a trap. The main question is if the trap will be big enough. He wonders if he is trying to use a mouse trap to catch a tiger. For the 3948th time he wishes he still had access to the resources of the FBI. Fox hurries out into the cool night. From the balcony he can see a neon sign: Ashville Motor Lodge is at the top with Valley MUFON Conference in small, removable letters at the bottom. Fox follows the balcony along the entire street-side length of the second floor and then down the stairs at that end. He crosses the parking lot to the lecture hall where the MUFON conference is being held. A poster stand by the door holds the announcement: Saturday Night Owl Session, Guest speaker TBA.

Fox enters the lecture hall with a few other late arrivals. His eyes quickly find the flash of red hair that marks the back of Dana Scully's head where she sits in the front row of seats. His heart skips as he realizes -and really feels- the danger that Scully is in. He touches his cell phone and thinks one more time about calling the FBI or even the local police. Fox grins at his jitters and takes a seat near the back of the room.

While Fox is entering and getting seated, a MUFON member is making some announcements about the Sunday schedule over the loud speaker system. When the announcements are done the speaker says, "Now Rick will introduce our guest speaker for tonight."

Fox is in environment scan mode, his eyes trying to look out of the back of his head. He knows that only the front door will allow entry to the meeting hall; all the other doors are exit-only fire doors and will sound an alarm if forced open from outside.

Richard Wells, the president of the Valley MUFON Chapter takes the microphone. "Thanks, Judy. And thank you all for getting back here in good time after dinner. But I knew you would because of the provocative title of tonight's talk, "The Alien Genome Project." Now, we were not sure if our speaker would be here tonight, so our good friend Fox Mulder was ready to serve as a substitute, but I am pleased to inform you that we do have Dr. Dana Scully here tonight." Wells nods to Dana. "As you all know, Dr. Scully is a medical doctor who once worked for many years along side Fox on the FBI X-Files project. Over the past few years she has been involved with biological research at Fort Detrick, working as a consultant. Now, Dr. Scully will tell us about "The Alien Genome Project."

The audience applauds and Dana rises from the first row. Wells clips a small microphone on Dana's jacket and then shakes her hand. She picks up a laser pointer and a remote control for the computer projection system and brings the title slide of her presentation to the screen at the front of the room. In large green letters, "The Alien Genome Project" glows behind Dana and the room lights are lowered. Dana looks out into the room and locks eyes with Mulder for a second. Most of those in the audience are relaxed but Dana can recognize the tense posture of Fox's body and that triggers her to full alert. As an experienced teacher, Dana is normally very composed for public speaking, but she counts silently to five in order to calm herself and she has to consciously remind herself put some good cheer into her voice.

"Thank you for inviting me to speak tonight. This is the first chance I have had to speak in public since leaving my position as medical consultant with the Army. I think you will be very interested to hear what I will tell you, but I must say right at the start that I am still under certain restrictions. When we get to the Q and A, I will not be able to answer some of the obvious questions that you will be forced to ask. I know this will be frustrating for you, and all I can say is that it is my hope that I will one day be able to more fully describe all of what I have been witness to."

Suddenly the doors to the conference hall burst open and armed men rush into the room. Scully is grabbed by two of the men and pushed towards the door. The audience members are shouting protests, "Leave her alone!" "Let her speak!" "This is America, you Nazi swine!"

Mulder stands quietly, one hand on the gun in its holster under his jacket, the other sending a text message from his phone. Scully risks only a glance at him out of the corner of her eye as she is taken out of the room. As soon as the last of the armed men passes out of sight into the entry way, Mulder leaps towards the door and does a graceful shoulder roll into the entry way, rising with gun drawn just as the outer doors swing shut.

Mulder is the first to follow Scully and the armed men after they leave the meeting hall. He sees two large blue vans leaving the parking lot, tires squealing. Fox runs down the short walkway to the parking lot as an old van pulls up next to Fox and Frohike pulls open the sliding door of the van. From the front seat Byers shouts, "Get in!" Mulder jumps into the moving van and Langly pushes the accelerator to the floor. Soon they are driving very fast through traffic as they follow -and attempt to keep up with- the vans driven by the armed men who took Scully. In the back of the Lone Gunmen van, Frohike is watching a computer screen with a global positioning signal flashing on a map of Ashville.