Novelas:Fly Paper

Fly Paper "Men have minds like moral flypaper" 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. Sunday, March 27, 2005 Agents Skinner, Reyes and Doggett have interviewed the few MUFON conference attendees still at the motel and are making one last effort to collect evidence from the conference hall where Dana was abducted. Skinner completes a phone call to Washington and notices Agent Reyes waiting to talk with him. He puts his phone in his inside jacket pocket and smells his not too clean under arms. He wonders if the motel's manager would let him slip into a room for a quick shower. It had been a mad dash to catch the first available flight out of Washington after the report of Scully's abduction. Skinner briefly wonders why he still lets himself be manipulated by Mulder. He does not want to admit to himself that he is here only because he is still highly protective of Scully, probably protective to an unseemly extent. Still, Scully had left the FBI on good terms with almost everyone and few would question his loyalty to her. Not that he would change even if someone did question his actions. Special Agent Monica Reyes can read the scowl on Skinner's face like an open book. She knows well how infrequently Skinner gets out of his office and takes command of an investigation. Reyes waits for creases between Skinner's eyes to smooth a little then she holds up towards Skinner the three digital cameras she is holding, “We have some excellent photos of the armed intruders in the act of abducting Scully." Skinner does not trust himself to speak in a civil tone. He can't stop thinking about –and resenting- how Mulder endlessly involves Scully in his crusade to obtain solid evidence of alien UFOs. Skinner takes one of the cameras from Reyes and tries to figure out its controls. Monica can see the tense line of Skinner's mouth and bunched muscles of his jaw. She restrains herself from explaining the control switches on the camera and lets Skinner read the labels on the controls for himself. Doggett approaches Skinner and Reyes and holds up an optical disc. “This is the disc that holds Dana’s presentation.” On their flight out from D.C. the agents had discussed the obvious hypothesis that someone had apparently wanted to keep secret what Scully was going to speak about at the MUFON conference. That hypothesis had not survived the first minutes of investigation into the abduction. "All the witnesses report that there was no attempt to take the disc." Skinner shakes his head, “This goes deeper than what Scully had to say." He is looking at an image showing Scully being taken away through a room full of protesting conference attendees. Skinner mutters, "Who ever is behind this has no fear.” He looks intently into the LCD display of the camera and continues to scan through the stored images. It is a small display window so he is holding the camera up close to his face. Reyes glances at Doggett, smiles, winks and mutters, “Who ever....or what ever.” Skinner scowls at Reyes over the edge of the camera and he sounds pissed, “What do you mean by that, Agent? Reyes maintains her bright student's smile. She is always happy to reveal things to her boss, particular since she knows Skinner is confident enough to never feel like he is being made to look stupid when he does not know everything. She explains, “Sir, look closely at the images of the ‘men’ who took Scully.” Skinner does as she suggests and slowly looks through the images that are stored in the camera a second time. While Skinner reviews the images, Doggett is looking through a printout of the names of everyone who had been registered at the motel that weekend. Reaching the end of the listed names, he looks up from the papers and sees Monica waiting patiently for Skinner to finish studying the images. Monica looks from Skinner to John and gives a slight nod to indicate that he would not be interrupting if he spoke. Doggett's heart beats a little faster as his eyes lock to Monica's. As the day has unfolded, Reyes has fully taken on the role that he thinks of as the cheer leader, trying to prevent everyone from sinking into despair. Doggett is thankful for Monica's reminder to stay open to the possibility that all is not lost and that it might actually be possible to rescue Dana. He tells Monica, “Scully’s name is not on this registration list.” Reyes is not surprised. She says, “According to Richard Wells, Dana drove in last night for the talk and was not planning on staying here over night." At one level of her mind, she can accept the idea that Scully would not want to stay at the MUFON conference any longer than it took to give the talk. Reyes does not yet doubt that Mulder had talked her into giving the "alien" presentation. Scully had been working for years to build her professional credentials as a medical researcher and the last thing she would have been looking for was a gig at a MUFON event. Skinner stops looking at the images stored in the camera and holds the camera so that Reyes and Doggett can see one of the images, “Recognize anyone?” he asks sarcastically. They all recognize the Lone Gunmen in the image, pictured sitting beside the motel's swimming pool. The three FBI agents share looks that say, 'I should have known!' Anytime that Mulder can find a way to get into trouble, the Lone Gunmen are expected to be nearby. “I did not notice anything unusual about the men who grabbed Scully.” Skinner turns the camera’s LCD screen back towards himself and scrolls back to the last few images in the memory, the images of the abduction. Reyes holds out her hand, “May I have the camera, Sir?” Skinner glares at her then decides not to look at the images a third time and hands over the camera. “I missed it at first, too. That LCD is too tiny for a good view.” She takes the camera over to the podium and does a wireless download of the images from the camera into the Mac Mini that is connected to the room's big screen projection system. “Let’s enlarge the images.” She hits some keys on the keyboard and a picture of Scully being dragged out of the conference hall fills the screen. “There.” She switches to another image. “There.” And a third, “And there.” She cuts parts of the three images out and pastes them all into a blank page, side by side. Now it is clear that the men all look identical. Doggett whistles. “Clone troopers, Princess Leia.” He moves to the computer, “But you missed something.” He returns the computer to one of the original full-sized images of the abduction and points to Mulder’s profile at the edge of the image. “There's Mulder, just watching the whole thing go down.” Skinner asks, “Did they take Mulder, too?” Reyes has skimmed through all of the statements taken from conference attendees by the Ashville police. She shakes her head, “No. The witnesses are all very sure: only Scully was taken. Those early reports we had of a third van being involved in the abduction were from confused witnesses. From what most of the witnesses report, it is clear that the third vehicle was the Lone Gunmen and Mulder following after Scully.” Skinner grabs the printout of names from Doggett and reads down the list. “Ya, Mulder was here, alright.” He points to a name on the list, "Charles Mantle. That’s Mulder, room 242." He squares his shoulders and looking at Monica and John is struck by how they resemble two race horses pent-up at the gate. "Reyes, get these images FTPed back to Washington. Doggett, see if Mulder left anything in his room. I want to know what he thought he was up to. I’m putting an APB out on the Lone Gunmen. Those bozos stick out like a sore thumb and I’m betting Mulder is still with them." As the two younger agents bolt to comply with Skinner's requests, the Assistant Director is glad to have them both on the case. Briefly he thinks of cats and lives and wonders how many lives Dana and Fox still have banked in their accounts. The Map Agent Doggett is let into Mulder's motel room by a maid who hands him a card key so that he can lock the door when he is done. Doggett notices that the maid's hand is shaking as she hands him the magnetic key card. He guesses that she is probably an illegal immigrant and totally freaked out to have police and FBI swarming around. He tries to paste a friendly smile on his face and asks her, "How many of these magnetic keys are active for this room?" The maid hesitates before answering. The door lock starts to emit a buzzing sound and the maid steps through the doorway and presses a button on the inner side of the lock, silencing the noise. Doggett moves through the door to try to see what the maid is doing. There is not much space in the narrow entry way to the room and Doggett ends up sandwiched quite close to the maid. He reads her name tag, P. Viray. The maid tilts her head up at an angle. Doggett stands more than a foot taller than she does. She meets his eyes for the first time and seems to relax a little when she sees his smile. She replies in her excellent second-language-English, "When they coded this card in the office just now, it became the second. Mr. Mantle has the other. Please bring this one back to the office when you are done, Sir." He assures her, "I will, Ms. Viray." She moves to leave, but he asks, "Did you speak to Mr. Mantle or notice if he was with anyone else, maybe other guests?" The maid stops in the hallway and turns back to look at him again. She shakes her head and replies, "No, Sir." "Okay, thanks." The maid departs down the hallway and Doggett lets the room door swing shut. He quickly collects Mulder's belongings: shaving kit, a change of clothes, a small gym bag. Doggett puts all of Mulder's items into the bag. He leaves his business card on the desk in case Mulder returns. Just as Doggett leaves the room, agent Reyes comes down the hall. Doggett holds up the bag, "Mulder travels light." The door lock starts to buzz and Doggett hits the warning buzzer kill switch on the inside of the door. Reyes wants to have a quick look around Mulder's room so she moves past Doggett, brushing her hip against him as she goes through the doorway. She resists the temptation to make a snide comment about Mulder never having encumbered his life with any excess baggage, but she is tired of expressing editorial comments on Mulder's fanaticism and single mindedness. Doggett watches Monica inspect the room and wonders if she will see anything that he missed. While she scans the room, Monica tries to generously let Mulder off the hook with a playfully flippant jab, "Its the incredible lightness of UFOlogy. THEY," she says with a drawl, making reference to space aliens, "have serious weight restrictions, so if you hope to hitch a ride to Aldeb'rin you need to pack light and keep your affairs in order." Monica bends over to peer into the lower cabinet of the wooden chest that holds the room's television set. She glances over her shoulder to make sure that John is watching her tush. "You look tired, John." She gestures to the bed and asks, "Would you like to lay down for a few minutes?" Doggett grins. This is the Monica that he has never seen in a public setting. Briefly he wonders what Skinner would do if he was ever subjected to Monica's bawdy humor. But Doggett knew that Reyes was too careful of protocol to let her hair down in front of a superior. Doggett automatically sends a silly reply right back to Monica, "I've never had a desire to get into Mulder's bed." Monica laughs and she is glad that they can keep up some good cheer. She fears the sluggishness of thought that can descend if she lets her fears take hold. Keeping a positive frame of mind allows her to keep her creativity flowing. She knows that gloom and doom keys Doggett to a heightened state of attentiveness, but she also knows that he can only sustain that kind of peak fight-or-flight efficiency for short times and it is best if she can knock him out of that state if danger is not imminent. Finding nothing in Mulder's room, she exits into the hallway. As she passes close to Doggett she winks at him and mutters quietly, "Mulder's not here, I am." As they start walking down the hall, Doggett thinks -Oh, you know that I noticed, Monica!- John knows that Reyes can play his emotions with casual ease, but she has never abused the power that she holds over him. Through the years of working as partners they have developed a complex ritual of private games and play that only John and Monica know anything about. Doggett constantly marvels at Monica's ability to effortlessly improvise that play so as to keep it fresh and positive. Outside of his marriage, Doggett has never had such an intimate adult relationship, and each day that he shares with Reyes reminds him how lucky he is to have a work relationship that can be so rich and endlessly stimulating. The buzz of the door knocks him out of these pleasant thoughts. The doors from the hallway to the guest rooms of the motel are set to give a warning buzz each time they are opened. To shut off the buzz, either a cutoff button inside the door must be pushed or the magnetic key must be inserted in the outside key reader. A sign on each door explains that this is a reminder for guests to take their key and lock the door. Doggett turns around, returns to the door of Mulder's room and uses the key to shut off the buzzer. Doggett quickly reviews the security instructions that are printed on the door then the two agents walk down the hall and past the fire extinguisher. Doggett says, "You know its Aldeberon." He enjoys watching her try to act stupid; she really can't do it at all. "There must be an "Aldeb'rin"....somewhere" She sings quietly, "Somewhere, out there, reflected as pale moonlight." The sound of Reyes voice sends a chill up Doggett's spine. He has never heard her sing except when they are alone. He is enchanted by her singing voice and has often wondered if she has training or if she just naturally can sing so sweetly. Reyes reaches into her coat pocket, "Nothing was in his rental car except this map." She hands a road map to Doggett and he hands her Mulder's bag. They go down the stairs and stop in front of the rental car. Doggett looks up at the sky and says, "I wonder why it just occurred to me to wonder if we and Scully still share the same big sky." Reyes is pleased that John so closely follows her thoughts. "I've had the same feeling, as if Dana had slipped away, further away than she has ever been before." In the parking lot, Skinner is telling an employee of the car rental company to lock Mulder's car again. "I know the car is due back at your lot by five O'clock, but I want you to leave it here until you hear from the FBI. I've already asked the motel manager to let it stay here. If Mulder comes back, he may need a car." Skinner and an FBI electronics technician join Doggett and Reyes on the sidewalk in front of the rental car. Doggett is spreading the road map on the hood of the car and Reyes is looking through Mulder's belongings in the bag. Skinner says, "The GPS tracker is in the rental car and we'll leave a video unit in Mulder's room." Doggett looks up from the map. "I doubt if Mulder will come back. There was nothing of interest in his room.....tooth brush and a pair of boxers. Only strange thing is this map. Its a map of Maryland." Doggett studies the map intensely. The technician clears his throat. Doggett looks up, reaches in his pocket and hands the magnetic key for Mulder's room to the technician, "Room 242. Take the key back to the office when you are done." The technician leaves to install a video camera in Mulder's room. Doggett starts to fold up the map but makes a mess of it. Skinner asks rhetorically, "What was Mulder thinking when he set up this crazy operation?" Reyes briefly watches Doggett struggle then she takes the map from Doggett and neatly folds it while replying to Skinner's question, "Strangely, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if Scully was behind this whole fiasco, with Mulder actually doing all he could to protect her." In a few seconds she has smoothed all of the map's creases and has it neatly folded to the one panel showing College Park. Doggett and Skinner look at each other and shrug; wondering how the FBI got along before there were female agents. Reyes points to a spot on the map and says, "There is what looks like a small pencil mark near College Park." She points to the edge of the map, "And these numbers along the margin match the mile counts between College Park and BWI airport." Skinner says, "I want to know anyone in College Park that has a connection to either Scully or Mulder. Check the airlines and see if Mulder has a flight booked." Agents Reyes and Doggett take out their phones and start making calls. The Alien Genome Project Later, agents Reyes and Doggett are on their second flight of the day. Back in Mulder's motel room, Reyes had been correct about Doggett being tired. He had been up late the night before, reading, and only had two hours sleep before being told to catch the flight to Ashville. Now Doggett is trying to sleep in an airliner seat that is too small for him and Reyes is looking at Mulder's map of Maryland. She knows that Mulder still lives near W.D.C. in Virginia. Reyes mutters, "What makes no sense is that Mulder would fly to Baltimore in order to get to College Park." Doggett mutters in terse reply without opening his eyes, "Side trip." Reyes realizes that she is keeping Doggett awake. For a moment she thinks about trying to catch a nap, snuggled up next to him, but she feels the weight of Scully's need driving her to press ahead with the investigation. Monica wants to know exactly what she is going to be doing and where she is going when the plane lands. Besides, she tells herself, I got enough sleep last night. She folds the map again and opens her laptop, enters a password, and reads the notes that she entered earlier: Scully has been using molecular biology laboratory facilities at The University of Maryland Division of Human Genetics, in Baltimore. University of Maryland also had on record that Scully had visited the Materials Research Center at the College Park campus. Reyes looks out the window and sees that their flight is turning towards Baltimore from the northwest. She can see Frederick. Although Monica and Dana had grown quite close during the time that they had worked together, they had not had much contact since Scully left the FBI. But now Reyes had reviewed the FBI's current dossier on Scully. Monica starts to type: Scully has been living in a rented house in Damascus, MD. for the past two years. Damascus is about in the center of a triangle formed by Fort Detrick, the University of Maryland Medical Center in downtown Baltimore and the College Park campus. Reyes takes out an optical disc with a copy of Scully's MUFON presentation and steps through the slides. The first slide is the title slide: The Alien Genome Project by Dana Scully Reyes is immediately repulsed by the sickly green letters of the title. Monica muses, –It looks like the credits for some college student's horror movie project.- The next few slides are more professional and outline Scully's work as a consultant for a government research project based at Fort Detrick that has been developing biological warfare agent detectors. Scully had been involved in field testing the detectors and suggesting modifications Reyes comes to a slide titled "False Positives" followed by a list of field test locations. The next dozen slides show her analysis of each case and an account for the false detection of an apparent biological warfare agent. Reyes yawns and shakes her head at Scully's methodical devotion to detail. She mutters to herself, "Those MUFON geeks would have been bored to tears." It crosses her mind that maybe they hired the hit men so that they could get out of Scully's lecture and hit the bars early. But then she sees the slide for the last remaining false positive: Molecular analysis unusual nucleic acid backbone sugar: tagatose six distinct nucleotides 3 allowed base pairs The next few slides then describe how the biological warfare agent detector was able to detect the unusual nucleic acid. The plane has reached the gate and passengers start to gather their belongings. Reyes goes back and notes the origin of the sample containing the unusual nucleic acid. It is listed as, "FBI- missing person crime scene." The final group of slides deals with Scully's on-going effort to adapt DNA sequencing technology to the task of determining the sequence of nucleotides in the unusual nucleic acid sample. Reyes wakes up Doggett and they leave the plane. "I think I know why Mulder was thinking about going to College Park. Scully must have gotten the Materials Research Center there to help her with analysis of the alien DNA." Doggett rubs his face, shaking off sleep. The flight had been too short and his attempt to get some sleep disturbed by anxiety over Scully's abduction. Doggett's intuition told him that the trail had instantly and unnaturally gone cold and that the conventional investigation methods of the FBI would fail to deal with yet another X-file case. As usual, he was starting to pin his hopes on the unconventional mind of his partner. As they navigate through the crowded airport, Doggett asks, "What is this about alien DNA?" Reyes quickly summarizes the key elements of Scully's planned presentation at the MUFON conference. Doggett asks, "So Scully was trying to decode the gene sequence of this unusual nucleic acid sample?" Skepticism is evident in his voice. Reyes nods. "Think about it, John. This is the perfect way to detect aliens. Aliens can't possibly remove every molecular trace of their presence on Earth. Scully apparently has an alien DNA sample and has been working to show that it contains alien genetic instructions." They reach a shuttle bus that will carry them to a car rental shop. They wedge themselves into a small bench seat of the bus and Reyes turns partly sideways to make room for Doggett's shoulders. She places both of her hands on John's right leg and lightly squeezes his thigh. "John, do you think Scully would have taken evidence with her when she left the FBI?" Doggett's head whips to turn to the side so he can see if she is serious. He asks in disbelief, "Why do you ask that?" Monica tells him about the source that Scully had listed for the alien DNA sample. John offers his guess, "Walking off with FBI evidence seems more like something Mulder might do. Scully, as an ethical medical doctor would not compromise biological samples from a crime scene." Monica zigzags the finger nails of her right hand along the inner surface of his thigh. "Think about the nature of this evidence. Scully leaves the FBI and then gains access to new, highly sensitive detectors of biological materials. And I happen to know that Scully does have at least one sample from an FBI case. Remember that device that she had removed from the back of her neck?" What Monica is doing to his leg is making it hard for John to think, but he says, "I don't think that qualifies as official FBI evidence. You think that device contained alien DNA?" Reyes shrugs. "I don't know, but I think that the detection methods she was using are so sensitive that she would not have to take an entire piece of evidence out of the FBI, maybe just a tiny fragment would be enough, and Scully would be comfortable taking diagnostic samples from pieces of evidence for forensic analysis." Doggett realized that Monica has a reasonable hypothesis. He says, "Okay then, you seem to have a handle on this DNA angle. We'll split up from here. You hit the two University of Maryland labs and I'll head north to Scully's place and Fort Detrick." Reyes nods agreement. "There is one thing about Scully's presentation that bothers me." Doggett asks, "What's that?" Reyes replies, "Calling it 'The Alien Genome Project.' That is so NOT Scully. I mean the word 'alien' is nowhere else in the whole presentation." Doggett chuckles. "It stinks of Mulder." Reyes asks, "Do you think Mulder put her up to it?" Doggett shrugs. "Why else would Scully even be at a MUFON event? I think it was Mulder trying to attract someone's attention. Scully was the bait." Doggett sounds bitter. He silently curses Mulder for making use of Scully in such a way; what essentially turned out to be a ritual human sacrifice. "Fly paper?" Monica asks. The bus reaches it destination and they stand up. "Well, if so, Mulder should have known better." Reyes disparages the Lone Gunmen. "Placing Scully's life on the line and trying to back her up with the help of the three stooges seems mighty lame, but I'm not sure we know the whole story yet" They exit the bus and get in line to rent cars. "I don't know. Maybe Mulder did not even know that the Lone Gunmen would be there." Doggett speculates, "Maybe I'll find something at Scully's house. A message from Mulder or something explaining his plan." They are occupied for a few minutes getting keys to their rental cars. Reyes advises Doggett, "Your only chance is that Scully left something on her computer. When she was still with the FBI she was using a hardware encryption device that the Lone Gunmen gave her. I heard that when Scully was run out of the FBI they spent six months trying to crack into the computer files that she left on her office computer and eventually they had to gave up. You'll never get into her files without her password." They go into the parking lot in search of their cars. "Ya, I've heard rumors about Scully's computer, that the NSA dismantled it chip by chip and could not even find the hidden encryption system. They threw all of their computing power they have at her hard drive and could not unscramble the text of her notes." Doggett puts his bag into his rental car. "Anyhow, thanks for the warning about Dana's computer, but Skinner and I were involved with getting her security clearance approved for working at Fort Detrick. Given her track record with data files, they insisted that there be a fail-safe on Scully's computer. Her keyboard was bugged and Skinner told me he could get access to her password." Reyes groans. "That's a dirty trick, John, she's a private citizen now." Doggett finally finds his rental car. "Private citizen with a military security clearance." Reyes sees her car just a few more spaces down the row. "A dirty trick, but it might help save her life." Doggett unlocks the trunk of his car and with military precision executes the required planning for when partners are forced to split up during an investigation. "We are dealing with a criminal conspiracy of unknown depth." Some irrational fear floods his mind with the idea that he may never see her alive again. He tries to drink the image of her in with his eyes. "Frequent phone check-ins with Washington and call me if you find anything of interest." Monica places a hand on his shoulder, "Ditto for you, Agent Doggett. I'm puzzled why we have not yet heard from Mulder. By now he must know that he bit off more than he can chew. I'm afraid that he has gotten himself into a position where he can't contact us anymore, even if he wants to." "If you are right, that probably means we are dealing with five abductees, counting the three bozos." Doggett tosses his bag in his rental car and starts to get behind the steering wheel then calls to Reyes, "Hey, can I have that road map? Where the hell is Damascus, anyhow?" Baltimore The Sunday evening traffic of people returning home from their weekend excursions was compounded by road repair work. It is after dark by the time Reyes reaches the University of Maryland Medical Center. She is tired and hungry and distressed that it is almost a day since Scully's abduction and the investigation has found nothing significant and useful that might help find Scully. With the help of her cell phone and a cooperative Medical Center operator, she is able to find her way through the maze of hospital complex hallways to the research lab where Scully has been doing her DNA work. She finds room D934 and reads the sign next to the door: Dr. W. Westlake. Diagnostic Genetic Assays Laboratory. Before Reyes can knock, a moving figure can be seen through the small frosted glass window of the door and the door opens a crack. Reyes holds up her badge to the crack, "FBI agent Monica Reyes. I think I spoke to you by phone about an hour ago." The door is opened all the way by graduate student Karen O'fein. "Come in." Karen locks the door behind them and somewhat self-consciously explains, "We're told to keep the doors locked at night. Sometimes people wander over here from the hospital wing." Karen turns to face Monica and stands wringing her hands. She asks hopefully, "Any sign of Dana?" Karen is young and frail and Reyes can understand her concerns about security, Monica herself had felt uneasy walking through the mostly deserted corridors of the hospital research wing. Reyes replies, "No reports on Dana's current location have been received." Monica glances left and right, "Are you the only one around?" Karen nods, sending strands of her fine dark hair dancing along the angles of her pure white cheeks. "It is always quite here on Sunday nights." Reyes is looking around the lab, trying to guess which of the half dozen work benches might be the one where Scully did her lab work. Monica is annoyed with herself and mentally corrects herself- where Scully DOES her lab work. "Why are you here on a Sunday night?" Karen shrugs. "Its a good time to get work done. I'm trying to complete my research and graduate. I already have a postdoc lined up in Oregon." At that moment Monica's stomach lets out a world class growl. "Hey, would you like a snack and some tea?" Monica nods but is busy looking at all of the interesting items in the lab and remains silent. Karen leads Monica to her desk at the end of a lab bench. "We are not allowed to eat in here, but I can get away with anything on weekends. Dr. Westlake goes out sailing 50 weekends of the year." She has an electric water heating pot on her desk and several bags of dried fruit and nuts. Karen opens a drawer and finds a second mug and some packages of tea, "These are the choices," She holds up the packages for Reyes to look at. Reyes notices one packet mysteriously labeled "Orange Dust" and says, "I have to try this one." She reads the label while Karen pours the mug full of hot water. Monica rips open the packet and places the tea bag in the mug. Karen pulls a second chair over from the adjacent desk and they sit down. Monica munches fruit and nuts while they talk. The entire room looks sparkling clean. Reyes asks, "Why the rule about not eating in here?" Karen explains, "We do use some nasty chemicals, like DNA intercalators that can cause mutations, but nobody who works in this lab is a slob, so it is safe to eat in here." Reyes realizes she has dropped some nut crumbs and they are perched conspicuously on the shelf of her breast. She flicks off the crumbs and wonders if she qualifies as a slob. She asks, "What if somebody had an accident and spilled some of these intercalators? I mean, how much would it take to cause a mutation?" Karen is impressed by Monica's statuesque figure. She looks down at her own more modest bosom and tries to imagine if it might be possible for even a few food crumbs to gain purchase there. She tries to explain about intercalators, "Intercalators are not like radiation, you have to ingest them, not just be near a source. But they are like radiation in that there is no safe level of exposure. Just one intercalator molecule in the wrong place at the wrong time could cause a mutation that might trigger a cell to change, maybe causing dangerous cell growth, cancer." The idea of microscopically small quantities of a chemical causing a possibly lethal toxicity slackens Reyes case of the munchies. She picks up the mug of tea and sips. "This is good tea." They discuss varieties and brands for a minute then Reyes says, "On the phone you indicated that you know Dr. Scully." "I've known her for two years." Karen smiles wistfully and looks off into space. She reminisces, "Dana was impressed by the odd teas I find. She and I would make up alternative names for them. We called this one 'agent orange'." Reyes asks, "Did Dana tell you that she used to be an FBI agent?" Karen nods, "Yes, we got to know each other well, but I got the feeling that she was a lab geek and did not do the sort of things you do....field work." Reyes smiles at Scully's modesty. "Dana never shied away from field work. She was a field agent for years; she just never gave up doing lab work at the same time. She's probably the most versatile agent the FBI ever had." Karen nods. "I don't think there is a molecular biology technique she doesn't know about. I've learned a lot from her." "Do you know what Dana's research was involved with?" "Yes." Karen stands up and leads Reyes to one of the desks in the lab. "This is Dana's desk." Reyes taps the keyboard of the computer on Scully's desk. A password dialog window comes up on the screen. Karen says, "Hey, don't you need a search warrant or something?" Reyes takes out her cell phone and tries to contact Skinner. "No, not really. If we are going to get Dana back, I need any information that might help us find where she has been taken. Its a safe bet that she would not object to me accessing her computer files in an effort to investigate her abduction" Skinner answers the call, "Skinner." Reyes turns away from Karen and speaks to Skinner, "Reyes here. I've got Scully's computer in Baltimore. Doggett told me you can hack her password." Skinner says, "Give me the number on the keyboard." Reyes flips over the keyboard and reads off, "KY2230745GRZ7a." Skinner repeats the number back and then says, "Give me 5 minutes." Reyes looks at her watch, puts her phone in her pocket and turns back to Karen. "Dana was abducted by armed men just about 24 hours ago, but we have learned nothing about where they took her." Karen says, "On the phone you mentioned it happened at some UFO thing?" "A MUFON meeting in North Carolina," Reyes replies. "A group of UFOlogy enthusiasts." "Ya, that's it. Dana was laughing about it all week while she was putting together her presentation. For a whole week she kept saying things like, 'Mulder's a sucker' and 'Mulder has flaky friends in low places'." Karen points to a picture of Mulder on a nearby book shelf. "He came into town about six months ago and took Dana to dinner." "Mulder and Scully worked together at the FBI." Reyes picks up the small framed photo of Mulder. "That's what Dana told me, and something about Mulder's obsessions being the cause of her getting kicked out of the FBI." Reyes returns the picture to the shelf, "Dana was not really kicked out. She was given the chance to resign and the FBI helped get her a new job. Do you know the nature of her work?" She does not add that it was Mulder who got kicked out. "We're all working together on Dr. Westlake's Army contract. Dana is our contact with the lab up at Fort Detrick. I'm sure she knows aspects of the work that I'm unaware of." Reyes asks, "You did not hear that Dana terminated her consulting work with the Army last week?" Karen nods. "Dana said it was a temporary leave, that she was going to be doing some traveling and speaking for a while. She left for North Carolina on Friday. She said she was going to make a bit of a vacation out of it." "Did Mulder call and speak with Dana last week?" Karen shakes her head. "Not that I know of, but I probably wouldn't know. You still have not told me exactly what happened to Dana. Is this Mulder character a suspect?" "No." She shows Karen a picture of one of the clones that abducted Scully. "This is the suspect. Look familiar?" "No. Who is it?" Karen asks. Reyes' phone rings and she answers the call, "Reyes." It is Skinner calling back. "Try this: Majestic-hybrid." Reyes enters "Majestic-hybrid" into the password dialog and gains access the operating system. "I'm in," She tells Skinner. Skinner instructs Reyes, "Establish a connection with the internet and leave it running. We will take-over the machine and download everything from this end." "Let me know if you find anything about her contacts with the College Park lab." Reyes confirms the internet connection. Skinner says, "The Materials Research Center at the College Park campus seems to be a dead end. Nobody there seems to know Scully. The computer data is on its way. Later." Reyes pockets her phone and turns back to Karen. "We are trying to find out if Dana was collaborating with anyone at the College Park campus." Karen says, "Sometimes Dr. Tekalni comes up from the College Park campus to work with Scully. And I know Dana had been going down to her lab a lot for a while, too." "What does Tekalni work on?" Karen shrugs. "Its fairly mysterious. Something to do with nanotechnology. She and Dana kept talking about atomic microscopy. I think Tekalni was reading the structure of molecules in some of Dana's samples by atomic force microscopy." Reyes asks Karen to write down "Tekalni" so that she is sure of the spelling. "When was the last time Dr. Tekalni was here?" "Hmm. Its been a while. A couple of months ago she was here every week but she has not been here for about a month." Reyes logs off of the computer. The hard drive indicator light kept flashing as the techs in Washington copied its contents. "Did Scully seem nervous or upset about anything this past week?" "She seemed a bit giddy. I figured she was excited about having a chance to talk about her work, but all she did was joke about those MUFU guys....she did not seem to take them seriously. You know, I think she has a soft spot for that Mulder guy. Maybe she was just excited to be meeting him in North Carolina." "Thanks for your time." Reyes hands Karen a card. "If you think of anything else, like maybe a name Scully might have mentioned recently.....anything unusual recen-" Karen cut in, "There is one thing I have been wondering about. After her work with Dr. Tekalni wound down, Dana ordered some unusual enzymes and then did a bunch of sequencing runs. I saw her collect a sample of her own blood and I think she was using her own DNA as a control. Why would she do that? We have standardized human genomic DNA in the freezer. When I asked her she just said, "I know my own DNA like the back of my hand. What is that supposed to mean?" "I guess she's just used to using her own DNA." Reyes remembers some of the medical school "war" stories Dana had told her about and speculates, "I think she started doing research as an undergraduate. Back then they may not have been used to all the conveniences that are available to molecular biologists now." Karen shakes her head. "You know what I thought? I wondered if Dana is sick or something. I know some people who experiment on themselves. I thought, maybe she is trying to treat herself for some genetic disease. She started reading all these papers about genetic engineering." Karen points to a stack of journal articles on Scully's desk. Reyes heads to the door, "Try not to worry about Dana. As far as I know she is in perfect health. I think she was going to talk about some biowarfare topic and the people at Fort Detrick found out and stopped her." Karen sounds shocked, "You think she was abducted by the Army?" "Its a logical guess. My partner is heading for Fort Detrick, with luck he'll find her there getting a lecture about government secrets" Reyes is just making up a story for Karen and is in a hurry to go, hoping that she can locate and speak with Dr. Tekalni. Reyes turns the bolt to unlock the door and exits to the hallway. "Thanks for dinner and your help, Karen." Karen follows and locks the lab with a key. "I'll walk out to my car with you. Sometimes its creepy down there at night." They take an elevator down to the underground parking garage. Reyes asks, "Have you ever been out to Scully's house?" Karen gets into her car. "Ya. She had the whole lab out there when she moved in. Why?" "Nothing much. It just occurred to me that maybe she has a house mate or a boy friend or something." "I don't think so. She has often said how quiet it is out where she lives. I think she gets lonely out there. She's often in here with me working on the weekends. You know, I don't think she has a real life. I hope I don't end up like that." The usual suspects Karen drives away and Reyes gets into her rental car. She calls the College Park campus operator and gets into a mechanized directory that provides both an office and a lab phone number for Dr. Tekalni. She tries both numbers and gets no answer. Next, she tries to get a home phone number for Dr. Tekalni, but none is listed publicly. She calls Skinner and puts a request in for Tekalni's home phone number. Skinner says, "Dr. Tekalni? I saw that name. Here it is. She's not in the materials division. She's listed under applied physics. I'll get back to you with the phone number." Reyes calls Doggett and he answers, "John Doggett." Reyes says, "Hi, John, this is Monica. Where are you?" She puts on her hands-free phone gear and starts the car. He replies, "I'm heading for Frederick. I'll find a room near Fort Detrick and get over there first thing Monday." Reyes drives out of the nearly empty parking garage and into street traffic. "I was lucky enough to find a student here at the lab and I sent the contents of Dana's lab computer to Washington. I'm going to try to contact a Dr. Tekalni who did some DNA work with Scully at the College Park campus. I'll probably just go home tonight." Doggett asks, "No luck finding Dr. Westlake?" Reyes replies, "I did get through to his wife. She confirmed that he's sailing on the Bay and never takes a phone when he's out sailing. He's expected back sometime Monday." Doggett says, "We're not doing real great are we? Scully's rental house is like a bachelor pad. No home-like touches. She doesn't even have cable, so I pulled the hard drive out of the computer. I'll try to FTP the contents to Washington from my hotel tonight." Reyes' phone chimes. "Hold on, John. Incoming call." The other call is a clerk at the FBI getting back with the home phone number for Dr. Tekalni. Reyes takes the home phone number and street address and connects back to Doggett. "Westlake's student indicated that it was Mulder who got Scully to talk at the MUFON conference. I don't think Dana realized there was any danger in her giving a talk down there." John says, "I'm sure it was Mulder who provided the MUFON connections, but I can't see him dreaming up the alien DNA angle." Monica concurs. "Somehow I also feel that Dana was not simply dragged into all of this by Mulder. She's the DNA expert. Maybe she told Mulder about this unusual nucleic acid she was working on and he got the idea of calling it alien DNA." Doggett fills Reyes in on some information from Washington. "According to Skinner, the army okayed the contents of Scully's talk. She sent them the contents of her presentation last week, they reviewed it and they didn't care. They were puzzled by her title for the talk and told her that there was no evidence that she had found alien DNA, but it was only her personal reputation at risk if she wanted to talk about aliens to some UFO buffs." Reyes says, "Okay, John. I'm going to try to phone Dr. Tekalni. Maybe I can talk to her tonight. If I get anything from her I'll call you later. Otherwise, call me Monday from Fort Detrick." Doggett signs off, "Okay. Good night, Monica. Drive carefully." "Good night, John." She calls the home phone number of Dr. Tekalni. Dr. Tekalni answers the call, "Hello." "This is agent Monica Reyes of the FBI calling for Doctor Tekalni." "Speaking." "Dr. Tekalni, I understand you have done some DNA research with Doctor Dana Scully." "Yes. That work was completed about a month ago." "Dr. Scully was abducted by armed men yesterday. Do you have any idea why someone might kidnap Dr. Scully?" Dr. Tekalni gasps. "Abducted? You think it has something to do with her work? I know she was working on an army-funded project, something to do with biological warfare." Reyes replies, "We are working on the assumption that her abduction is related to her contract with the army and the work on DNA." Dr. Tekalni says, "Well, that DNA she had was certainly interesting. Unique. But Dana would not tell me much about it. When I pressed for more information, Dana said that access to more detailed information than what she had told me about was restricted by the military." Reyes asks, "Did you ever meet Fox Mulder?" "Not that I recall." Reyes explains, "I have reason to believe that Mulder may have been planning to visit you. Either today or Monday." Dr. Tekalni is puzzled. "Not to my knowledge. But wait. I have not checked my office voicemail since Friday. Hold on." Several minutes pass. Reyes reaches Interstate 295 heading south towards Washington. Takalni comes back on the connection to Reyes. "A Mr. Mulder left me a message. He said he would be in Maryland today and he wanted to meet with me. He mentioned Scully. Said he knew of me through Dana." Reyes asks, "Why do you think Mulder wanted to meet with you?" "It must have something to do with that strange DNA Dana is working with. Who is this Mulder, anyhow?" Takalni asks. Reyes replies, "That's a rather complicated story. Can I meet you tonight?" Dr. Tekalni sounds nervous. "You have gotten me a little bit upset. You tell me that Dana has been kidnapped and I do not even know who you are." "I'm sorry to contact you in this way, but we are trying to find any information that might help us figure out who abducted Dana. Let me give you the number of my office, the FBI in Washington. Call and ask them about me and this investigation. Then call me back at this number. I'd prefer to meet you tonight. If you can think of anyone who would abduct Dana, you need to tell me that right now. Otherwise, I'd like to make an appointment to see you first thing Monday." Dr. Tekalni takes the phone number for the FBI. "I'll call you back." Reyes is off of highway 295 and getting close to the town where Dr. Tekalni lives by the time her cell phone rings. "Monica Reyes, here." "Pearle Tekalni. I just spoke to someone named Skinner at the FBI. He says I can trust you. Let me give you my address." "I have your address. You can expect me in about five or ten minutes." Monica breaks the connection and tries to figure out the local streets leading to Tekalni's house. After a few wrong turns it is close to ten minute before she finds it. A man opens the door after Reyes rings. "I'm Agent Reyes with the FBI. Are you Mr. Tekalni?" The man nods. "My last name is different, but I'm her husband. Please come in." He leads Reyes to an adjoining room. Pearle Tekalni is sitting on a sofa with a laptop. "Have a seat, Agent Reyes, I'm just checking my email. I discovered that Dana sent me an email on Friday saying that she would be passing through Washington on Monday or Tuesday and she would stop by the lab if I was going to be available." Reyes sits in a chair and asks, "Did Dana mention Mulder in her email?" "No." Pearle turns to her husband, "Maybe you can check on the tea." She turns back to Reyes. "Would you like some tea? I decided to have some. I doubt I am going to get much sleep tonight." Reyes leans back in the chair. "Yes, please, I'll have tea." Reyes smells something like pastry and realizes that she is still hungry after the snack with Karen. "I want to tell you that we are doing everything possible to find Dana. I'm not sure if you know this, but she was an FBI agent until about two years ago." "Yes, Dana once mentioned that." Pearle closes her lap top. "I'm not sure if this will make you feel any better, but Dana is tough and resourceful. She has been abducted before, when she was an agent, and she always seems to find her way home." Mr. Tekalni brings in tea and hot pecan cinnamon rolls. Reyes' stomach growls and they all laugh. Pearle says, "If my motherly instincts are still working, you have not been taking care of yourself. Dana is your friend?" Reyes takes a bite of a cinnamon roll and finds her teeth threatening to lock up on its content of an embedded sticky caramel swirl. After a sip of tea she finally replies, "Yes, I worked with Dana when she was with the FBI. We became quite close." Mr. Tekalni sits down next to his wife. "I'm surprised that you are on the case if it involves someone you know." Reyes offers a defense of the practice. "In cases like this it can be useful to involve people who know the victim well." Pearle asks, "And what if you are so anxious to find Dana that you do not take time to eat and you do not bother to sleep and then you start showing fatigue and making errors?" Reyes asks for a second roll. "Then I rely on good luck to find someone who will feed me and remind me to take care of myself. Do not worry about me. I live close to here and I plan to sleep in my own bed tonight. I'm waiting to talk to Dr. Westlake, but it looks like he is out of reach until sometime Monday." Pearle says, "Yes, I met Westlake several times when I was meeting with Dana in Baltimore. I understand he is a sailing enthusiast." Reyes asks, "Did Dr. Westlake closely supervise Dana?" Pearle replies, "No. Westlake works with his students. The contract that he has with the Army is basically a way to buy Dana lab bench space and access to the molecular biology facilities in Baltimore. There may be some technology transfer, too, but mostly what Westlake gets is money. He has no say in Dana's work." Reyes is not happy to hear this. She had been hoping that Westlake might be working closely with Dana and be able to provide some insight into her plans. "Did Dana tell you that she had taken leave from her work for the Army?" "No." Pearle is surprised. She asks, "When did this happen?" Reyes replies, "The leave took effect about a week ago. I have been told that it is temporary, to give Dana time to travel and do some speaking." Pearle gestures to her laptop. "I'm surprised. I could show you a rather heated exchange of emails I had with Dana about a month ago. I was trying to get her to agree to publish our results on the unusual DNA she is working on. She refused. I even requested that I be able to give a presentation on the DNA analysis at a scientific meeting and she refused. She claimed it had to be cleared by the army and that they did not want to permit it." Reyes wonders why Dana changed her mind towards speaking publicly about her DNA research. "Well, something changed about a week ago. She requested and got permission to give a presentation in North Carolina. She was just starting to speak when a gang of armed men grabbed her right out of the conference hall." "Strange. I was upset with Dana, but now it sounds like she might have been protecting me. I can't help thinking that maybe the army is involved in the abduction." Reyes shakes her head. "Not as far as the FBI can determine. The army approved the content of her presentation. Here it is." Reyes hands Pearle the optical disc with Scully's presentation. Pearle inserts the disk and brings up the presentation. She laughs at the first slide. "Alien DNA? Is this a joke?" Reyes grins. "Do you know Karen O'fein?" Pearle narrows her eyes. "Isn't that one of Westlake's students? Wee bit of a lass?" "Yes. That's her," Monica replies. "I know her," Pearle explains, "but not well." Reyes continues her thought, "She told me that Mulder was responsible for the title of Scully's talk." Pearle scans through the rest of the publication. "It is strange that Scully would agree to use that title. What kind a meeting was she speaking at?" "A MUFON event." Tekalni's husband laughs. Pearle asks, "What is 'MUFON'?" Pearle's husband explains, "UFO nuts.....er, enthusiasts." Reyes explains further, "Mulder has long been interested in finding evidence for aliens on Earth. It seems likely that it was Mulder's idea to interpret the results of the DNA analysis in terms of aliens." Pearle frowns. "I hope the FBI does not think that aliens abducted Dana." Reyes shows Pearle the photo of one of the men who abducted Dana. "Do you recognize this man?" Pearle hands the photo to her husband and she opens her laptop. She brings up an image. "About two weeks ago there was a break-in at my lab. One of my students has a webcam on his computer that captures an image of the inside of the lab every five minutes. This image shows the person who apparently broke into the lab." The webcam image is not very good. The camera was not set up for the purpose of photographing people in the position where the intruder was detected. Reyes is not sure if the man's face matches the appearance of the group of clones who abducted Scully. Reyes asks, "What was taken from your lab?" "Nothing, but my office adjoins the lab and that night the hard drive of my computer was taken." "I assume that your hard drive contained information about the DNA you and Scully were working on." "Yes, it was annoying to have to get a new drive. My computer archives data to servers on the university network every night, so nothing was lost." Reyes says, "I need the original webcam images and I'd like to send all of your emails and other information related to Dana and the DNA work to Washington." Monday. March 28, 2005 Reyes is dreaming. She is on an airplane with Doggett. Everything morphs into an external view of a flying disc. A set of lights on the bottom of the disc starts to spin and an annoying buzz comes from the floating ship. Doggett says, "Is that my cell?" Reyes wakes up and realizes the buzz is her cell phone. She is totally disoriented and by the time she finds her phone it is quiet, the display reads: missed call 5:47am. Reyes realizes she is in Dr. Tekalni's house. They had talked late into the night and then Pearle had insisted that Reyes stay there for the night. Reyes had agreed and had been glad to not have to face another hour of driving to reach her house in Virginia. Particularly since she would just have to drive back that distance Monday. Reyes calls the phone number for the missed call and is connected to the FBI image analysis lab. "Monica Reyes, here. I just missed your call." The FBI technician says, "Sorry to wake you up, but I thought you would want to be brought up to date." Reyes notes that the technician does not sound a bit sorry. "Yes, of course. What do you have?" "We were able to clean up both the North Carolina images and the Maryland webcam images. I'm 95% certain that the man who was in that lab two weeks ago is part of the gang that abducted Dana Scully. We pulled several other matches out of the image bank. One was from a security camera at Fort Detrick from a week ago. I've already passed that on to Doggett." Reyes asks, "What are the other matches?" The technician replies, "Nothing that we can fit into a pattern. There are about a dozen scattered images from around the mid-Atlantic states during the past month." "Any near Baltimore?" The technician pauses to look at the list, "There was another one in Maryland. Here it is. Some little town called Poplar Springs. Photo-radar speed enforcement image. The vehicle could match the vans used in Scully's abduction in North Carolina." Reyes asks, "Where is Poplar Springs?" The technician pulls up a map of Maryland. Reyes says, "Is it anywhere near Frederick, Baltimore, Damascus or College Park?" The technician finds Poplar Springs on his map and replies, "Its right between Damascus and I-70." Reyes informs the technician, "Check the Scully file, she lives in Damascus. Fax that list of matches to my laptop." "Yes, sir." The technician acknowledges. "Doggett already asked me to do that. One more thing. Director Skinner asked me to tell you that our satellite scan found the stooge-mobile in the Blue Ridge mountains. Skinner is on his way there." Reyes asks, "The stooge-mobile?" "That's what I asked when Skinner said it." The technician pauses. "He said you would understand, something about the lone ranger." Reyes suggests, "The Lone Gunmen?" "Ya, that was it," Confirms the technician. "Are you saying that the Lone Gunmen's van was found abandoned in the mountains?" "I have not seen the data. That's in another section. I can have them call you if you need more information." "Have them fax me a report." Reyes cuts the connection and falls back against the pillow on the bed. She is tempted to head for the Blue Ridge mountains and join Skinner there. She suspects he will be leading a search of the area around the van. She sits up and opens her laptop. She discovers that there is no wireless internet access point within range that she can connect through. There is a quiet knock at the door. Pearle asks, "Everything okay, Monica?" Reyes opens the door. "Sorry to wake you. Just a call from Washington." Pearle says, "I was not sleeping. Any word on Dana?" "No. Nothing." Reyes wakes up enough to realize she is practically naked. She notices that Pearle is unconcerned like a battle hardened mom. Pearle asks, "Are you ready for breakfast or are you going back to bed?" Reyes replies, "I need to make some calls and read some faxes and I need a shower." "Well, let me know when you are ready to eat. I'll be in the kitchen. Towels are in the hall closet." Reyes asks, "Can you give me the password for your wireless router? Washington is trying to send me some files." Pearle nods, "Its Nanoscope647A. All lower case except the first and the last letter. Want me to write it down?" Reyes shakes her head. "Thanks, I got it. If I have any trouble with your firewall I'll let you know." Pearle offers, "I could shut off the firewall while you are here." "Don't bother, its almost certain that my computer can hack it, all I needed was your password to get past your encryption." Reyes connects to the internet and reads files from Skinner, Doggett and the image processing sections. She calls Doggett. Doggett is waiting for papers to be pushed to clear him into the labs at Fort Detrick and with nothing better to do, prescreens the incoming call and notes that it is Reyes calling. "Hello Agent Reyes," He says cheerily. "Damn it, John, I thought I was up early. Are you on the road already?" "I'm on military time today. Did you hear the Blue Ridge news?" Reyes replies, "Yes. I'm afraid we now have five missing persons." "Looks that way. I'm a bit worried about anyone connected to this case." Doggett asks, "Should we put protection on these civilian scientists Scully has been working with?" Reyes describes the break-in at the Tekalni lab. "I doubt if the clone gang found anything in College Park to concern them." Doggett agrees. "Everything seemed to get hot when Mulder started pushing this 'alien DNA' angle last week. Could be that the reason nothing interesting was found on either of Scully's computers is that they were sanitized before we could get there. By the way, I called the University of Maryland Medical Center and told them to impound their security videos. They are on a one week tape cycle so there is a chance we might spot one of these 'clones' on a visit to Westlake's lab during the past week. By the way, be careful with the 'clone' talk. The official position is that all these facial matches are due to the use of latex masks." Reyes laughs. "Thanks for the warning. Well, I guess I'm just going to go back to Baltimore and wait for Westlake to show. Seems like it will be a waste of time. Apparently Scully was working independently from Westlake." "Well, I'm getting that same story from this end. Scully was totally free to use these military bioagent detectors as she saw fit. According to the army, she had a knack for finding problems with the detectors and suggesting fixes. Given her steady contributions, she was given a lot of latitude." Doggett talks to someone at his location. "I have to go. Later." Reyes puts away her phone and heads for the shower. Westlake Reyes is sitting at Scully’s desk looking through her computer files on branched DNA. She finds reference to the first branched DNA sample in a report that is nine months old. She is puzzled by Scully’s labels and asks Karen for some help. “This file seems to indicate that Dana first detected branched DNA in a negative control sample.” Karen reads the file and points at an image of a DNA sequencing run. “I remember when she ran this gel. She asked me if I had ever seen anything like it. See these gaps in the pattern where there is a hole in the sequence? But you are correct, Dana’s notes indicate that this DNA came from a blood sample that she was using as a negative control. Then she lists it as a false positive in the small pox test.” Reyes asks, “Small pox test? Dana was working on small pox?” Karen points at Scully’s notation. “See this ‘Vv’. Variola vera. Small pox. I know that is one of the biological warfare agents that the detectors from Fort Detrick are designed to recognize.” Reyes wonders, “Why would a blood sample test positive for small pox?” “See this number here? 834, that’s the signal for the positive control. The test value for the negative control was 123, but it was higher than all the other samples tested. Most of the time this would mean that the negative control sample was contaminated. Scully would have checked that. Here it is." Karen pages a few days ahead in Scully’s notes. "This PCR test shows that there was small pox DNA in the positive control sample but not the negative control sample. Conclusion?” Reyes shrugs. Karen continues, “Cross-reactivity. Something besides small pox DNA has triggered the detector. This is the sort of problem Scully is paid to identify. And here is the DNA sequencing run…..Scully wants to know what is in the negative control blood sample. What I do not see is what she used for a sequencing primer.” Karen scans back through the files for ten minutes, describing to Reyes the various experiments and procedures mentioned in Scully’s notes. “Okay, now I get it. Look here. Months before, Scully had done a subtractive hybridization on the negative control blood sample DNA. Bingo. She used random primers. She did not bother to write it down in her notes.” Reyes is lost in the molecular biology jargon storm. “What is a random primer?” Karen explains, “A trick that allows you to sequence unknown DNA. Dana could get away with it because she had removed almost all the human DNA from the blood sample in the subtractive hybridization.” Monica asks, “What would be left in a human sample after you removed the human DNA?” “Hopefully nothing. That’s why it is a good negative control. But if the person who gave the blood had an infection, you might detect microbial DNA. In this case, the first guess would be small pox DNA, but Scully tested for that and detected none. So she did a shotgun sequencing reaction to detect anything that was there. And what she saw was this weird sequence with gaps.” Someone opens the door to the lab and Karen turns to see who it is. Dr. Glenn Westlake enters the lab. Karen goes over to him and they speak for moment. Reyes logs out of Scully’s files and stands up. Karen brings Dr. Westlake over to Dana’s desk and introduces Westlake to Reyes. There are half a dozen students working in the lab and Reyes suggests to Westlake that she go with him to his office. He agrees and they start walking from the research wing to the hospital wing. Along the way they talk about sailing. They reach a door with ‘’’Dr. Glenn Westlake, MD.’’’ on it. Westlake unlocks the door, they enter the office and they sit on opposite sides of his desk. “Now, what’s this about Dana being kidnapped?” “It is not really a kidnapping case.” Reyes explains, “There have been no contacts from the men who abducted Scully. Do you know any details of her DNA work?” Westlake asks “You think this crime is related to her work?” Reyes nods. “I have some idea of the nature of this unusual DNA she was working with. Do you think it could be alien DNA?” Westlake laughs. “Alien DNA? Is that what the FBI thinks? Are you going to tell me that Scully is E.T. in drag?” He laughs again. Reyes flushes pink. “Why do you say that?” Westlake shrugs. “If you think the DNA is alien then you must think that Scully is an alien.” Reyes asks, “Why must that follow? You think a human scientist could not recognize alien DNA?” “Not at all." Westlake wonders just how little sense Dana's research makes to Reyes. "Its just that the samples with the branched DNA all came from Dana." He pulls a printout of part of Scully's lab notes out of his desk drawer. He points in the notes, ”See all of these notations, SDS?" Reyes replies, "That is something I recognized when I started looking through her notes, its a common laboratory detergent." Westlake nods. "True, but not in this context. Here it means 'source, Dana Scully'." For a moment Reyes mind shifts and reorients, adapting to this new fact. Reyes realizes that she had almost been to the point of realizing that Dana must be the source of the odd DNA. Dana’s own blood would be the ready source of control DNA that she would be likely to use in her work. “Dana found branched DNA in her own blood?” “Not much, but it was there in steady amounts over several months. That was the first thing she checked. She told me that she thought cells in her body had to be making a steady supply of the stuff. That’s when….” He stops and rubs his chin. “I’m not sure about the ethics of this situation. Do you need a search warrant or something to get into Dana’s medical history?” Reyes shakes her head. “If you know anything that might help the FBI solve this crime you should tell me. I’m sure that under these conditions Dana would not want you to feel an obligation to keep her medical information private.” Westlake's doubts about the medical ethics are calmed. “Dana told me that she has reason to suspect that her brain was the source of the branched DNA. Of course, when she first told me that I did not know that she was dealing with branched DNA. She just had this strange sequencing data that showed gaps in the sequence. Dana asked me to do a brain biopsy on her. I told her that there was no way any doctor would cut into her brain. Apparently she had already asked several other doctors and they had all refused. She told me about her brain cancer and she claimed that she had huge amounts of branched DNA in her blood when she had the cancer. She was afraid that the cancer might come back. She showed me two scans of her brain. In the recent scan, there was no visible tumor but there was unusual growth in her cingulate cortex. That was the part of her brain that she wanted biopsied. In the second scan, an older scan, I could see a tumor and I could see that her cortex had been normal then. I finally got Dr. Bond in Neurology to do the biopsy. Dana tested that brain tissue and found that it was producing branched DNA. By then, she and Dr. Tekalni had shown that it was branched DNA.“ Reyes asks, “The branched DNA made her cortex grow?” Westlake replies, “Apparently it was in some way associated with that growth. After Dr. Tekalni figured out the structure of the DNA, Scully learned how to cut out the branches. She could then sequence new parts of the DNA. The part that was originally sequenced turned out to be uninteresting. The new sequences were for some interesting genes that are normally expressed in large amount during early development when the brain is growing rapidly. Scully found that the branched DNA had inserted modified copies of these growth genes into certain neurons of her cortex. We also did a functional MRI scan. It showed that Dana’s hypertrophied cortex region was very active and was causing a distributed pattern of altered brain activity.” Dana feels a shiver of horror for what Dana had gone through. “It was making Dana sick?” Westlake is impressed by the look of concern on Reyes' face. “Not at all. She said she never felt better.“ Reyes asks, “Where do you think this branched DNA came from?” “Dana figured that out. She told me that she found an integrated viral genome in chromosomal DNA of her brain tissue sample. The branched DNA was from a virus. I told Scully that we had to publish her results. She said it was a government secret and that we could not publish. She refused to show me the sequence data for the provirus. Then she told me she was going on leave from being a consultant for the army. That was a week or two ago. I told her that it sounded to me like she picked up some virus out at Fort Detrick. Or maybe it was some experimental gene therapy from when she had brain cancer. She stopped telling me about her work." Westlake shrugs. "If I were you, I’d go to Fort Detrick and ask them what is going on.” “My partner is there today, but we have no evidence that anyone there knows anything about this branched DNA. They gave Scully permission to talk about it.” Monica hands Westlake the disc with Scully’s MUFON presentation. He brings the title slide up on his computer. “So this is where you got the idea that its alien DNA. This must be a joke. Sometime scientists put joke slides into their talks to break up the monotony.” Reyes realizes that only someone familiar with Dana’s and Fox’s past with the X-files would connect branched DNA to aliens. Clearly, Dana had not shared that background information with her scientific friends. Until today, only Fox and Dana (and possibly the Lone Gunmen, depending on what Mulder had told them) would have known that Dana’s body contained evidence of alien genetic engineering. And everyone who knew that secret was now missing. Except now Reyes knew the secret, also. What Reyes could not figure out was why someone would be so worried about what Dana knew that they would grab her in front of 50 witnesses and yet they would leave available all of the laboratory evidence of the branched DNA and how to detect it and study it. Then Reyes realizes that as long as Scully -the only source of the DNA- was unavailable, there was no way to confirm the idea of an alien virus that had been used to genetically engineer a human. Reyes notices Westlake watching her. She asks, "Is there more of the brain biopsy tissue?" Westlake shakes his head. "The tissue sample was tiny and Dana used it all for her lab tests." Westlake watches the wheels turning behind Reyes' eyes. He says, “There is something you are not telling me.” Reyes does not want to put Westlake in danger by telling him more than he already knows. “Four others are now missing. They went after Scully when she was abducted, but now they cannot be found. I’m worried about you and any of your students who have worked with Scully. Security does not seem very tight here.” “True. Sometimes people wander over to the research wing from the public areas of the hospital. There has been talk about locking doors in the hallways, but nobody wants to deal with extra keys. I doubt anything will be done until there is a serious crime here in the building.” Reyes tries to judge if Karen or Glenn are likely to guess that Mulder might have known what he was talking about when he made Scully use the term “alien DNA”. She asks Westlake, “Would you be willing to let me talk to your lab group and stress the need for extra security?” Westlake nods. “Since five people are missing, it seems reasonable to take precautions. Dana has a military security clearance. I’m sure she knew things that none of the rest of us know. The answers must be at Fort Detrick.” Reyes asks Westlake to arrange a lab group meeting for 4:00 PM and then goes downstairs to meets with the FBI technicians who have been reviewing the hospital security tapes. The video cameras in the hospital are arranged primarily to image everyone leaving the hospital. The technicians have failed to find any archived images that match the men who abducted Scully. Reyes asks the technicians to put magnetic key locks on the doors to Westlake’s office and his lab and video cameras in both rooms. By 3:30 the work is done and Reyes tests the locks and confirms that the video feeds are reaching the image analysis section in Washington. She calls Doggett again, not expecting to get through since he has not been answering his phone for hours. But the connection opens. “John Doggett” Reyes complains, “I’ve been trying to reach you all day.” John wonders about the cause of the emotion he can hear in her voice. He teases her, "Nice to know you missed me. They would not let me take my phone into the labs up here. I’m checking out of security right now.” Reyes says, "I do worry about you, and everyone else associated with this case." Reyes asks, “Did you learn anything about the source of this unusual DNA?” John gives a hearty sigh expressing his frustration over a long day with few results. “No. All they have here are Dana’s reports. Chemical analysis of the DNA from Scully and atomic microscopy results from Dr. Tekalni.” Reyes asks, “Did you see Scully’s reports? Did she describe the source of the DNA?” Doggett replies, “One report said ‘FBI crime scene evidence’.” Reyes explains, “That ‘crime scene evidence’ was Scully, herself.” Doggett gives a drawn-out whistle. He says, “Why am I not surprised? All the folks up here really care about is that Scully suggested a way to modify their small pox detector so that it does not give false signals. The most popular view here is that Scully’s abduction is Mulder’s sick way of eloping with Scully and entertaining the MUFON geeks at the same time.” Reyes hears the smile on Doggett’s face. “John, I hope you are taking this seriously. Now you and I both know what Scully knew.” Doggett's voice is suddenly serious and it is clear that he had only been amused by the army biowarfare researchers. He says sternly, “Right. You watch your step, Monica." He asks, "Have you told Skinner about the source of the DNA?” “He’s been in and out of cell phone contact in the mountains. I left a voice mail on his office phone. I have to go to a meeting now. I’ll call again when I’m free.” “Fine. I’m going to drop off my rental car in Washington and head for home. See you at the office tomorrow?” “Unless I catch a flight to join Skinner.” She cuts the connection, switches off the ringer on her phone and steps into the conference room where Westlake has assembled his research students. Reyes hands each member of the lab group a magnetic key card. “Carry your card at all times. You will need it to go in or out of the lab. The only exceptions are if there is a fire alarm or if you get a tech in Washington to open the lock. If there is a fire alarm, the key pad will open the door from the inside if you enter 4376. That code is on the lock, you just have to key it in during a fire alarm to get out. Any other time, if you enter 4376 a technician in Washington will look at the video feed and ask you what you need. Questions?” Karen asks, “Any news about Dana?” Reyes shakes her head, “Nothing on Dana. Four others are now also missing.” Westlake says, “If there is a serious danger to my students, why not provide some real protection?” Reyes explains, “There is no reason to believe that any of you are in danger. If you had been in danger, something would have happened already. We have reason to think that those who abducted Dana were after secret information that she has, related to her work for the Army. It is likely that they have checked Dana’s computer in order to see if it contains that information. That’s why hospital security asked each of you earlier today if you had ever seen any indication that someone broke into the lab. It is possible that someone will try to get at Dana’s computer and this is the reason for the extra security on the lab. If someone tries to break into the lab, let them do so. There is nothing in the lab to protect except you. My guess is that they know there is nothing of value in the lab and all of this will have been a waste of time. We are just trying to be cautious. Other questions?” One of the students asks, “How long will this extra security be in effect?” Reyes replies, “Hopefully we will find Dana soon and capture her abductors. Failing that, if nothing happens in the next few weeks the possible danger will probably have passed. Oh, one last thing. There is now a sign on the lab door with a URL at the FBI website where the data from Scully’s computer can be accessed. Do not bother going to that URL. If you do, expect a visit from the FBI. We are simply making the data available so that nobody who wants it will feel like they have to break into the lab and hack Scully’s computer.” Westlake says, “Thank you agent Reyes. I think we all agree that it will be safer working in the lab now than it has ever been in the past. Still, if any of you need to talk about Dr. Scully or any other worries, just let me know.” 7 of 8 During Reyes' meeting with the Westlake lab group, one of the clones comes to the door of the lab. He reads the sign on the door that gives a URL for gaining access to the data from Scully's computers. The clone moves away down the hall and waits for the elevator. Reyes and others come out of the conference room after concluding their meeting. The clone watches as Reyes says a few last words to Karen and Glenn. The elevator door opens and the clone takes the elevator down to the parking level. Two minutes later, Reyes emerges from the elevator and walks towards her rental car. The clone is watching Reyes through a small window in a door that leads to a stairway. Reyes gets into her car and turns her cell phone back on. The phone rings immediately. Reyes curses herself for not remembering to turn the ringer on after the meeting was completed. "Monica Reyes, here." It is the FBI automated calling system, "Please hold. The caller is being informed that you reactivated your phone. Please hold..." Reyes checks the number and sees that the call came from the image analysis section. She puts on her hand-free phone gear and has the car started by the time a technician comes on the line. "Agent Reyes? Are you still in Baltimore?" Reyes is surprised by the agitation that she hears in the technician's voice. "Yes, I'm just leaving the U. of M. Medical Center." Reyes notices a large blue van in the parking garage as she drives towards the exit. The technician says, "We got an automated facial recognition match from one of the video units in the Medical Center just 15 minutes ago." Reyes slams on her brakes and backs up to the van. "I'm in the parking garage of the Medical Center. There is a blue van here matching the description of the vans leaving the scene of Dana Scully's abduction." It has what looks like some kind of temporary or dealer plate. Reyes parks the car, gets out of it and draws her gun. The FBI technician says, "Medical Center security has already reached the Westlake lab and reports no trouble there." Reyes looks in the driver's window of the van and then returns to the back of the van and bends down to look closely at the temporary plate. "It looks like a West Virginia dealer or delivery plate, number-" She hears a step behind her and tries to dive behind her rental car, but the clone fires a small crystal projectile into her back from a hole between two of his fingers. The crystal shatters and injects a drug into Reyes. Her cell phone smacks the bumper of the car and bounces out of her hand and onto the ground. Reyes fires a blind shot over the trunk of the car as she crawls to the open driver's door of her car. Reyes slumps onto the seat behind the steering wheel as the drug reaches her brain. There are several people in the parking garage who hear the gun shot. One driver stops his car, a red compact model, at the end of the row of cars where the blue van is parked and watches the clone pick up Reyes and put her into the van. He shouts, "Hey, what are you doing?" He has his cell phone out and is calling 911. The clone ignores the man and starts engine of the van. The van pushes the rental car out of the way as it backs out of its parking space. The clone stops backing the van and starts to drive towards the red compact at the end of the row. A Medical Center security guard steps out of the elevator with a phone to his ear. He sees the blue van over the roof of the red compact. He shouts into the phone, "I see the van!" He realizes that the van is going to try to drive past the red compact, but it does not look like there is enough space. The van clips the front end of the red compact sending it spinning towards the security guard. The van speeds towards the exit. The guard runs towards the exit and watches the van crash through a gate and leave the garage. Trading Post In the last light of day and a mile out of the Fort Detrick gate, Doggett sees the glowing sign of a dinner called The Trading Post. Doggett pulls off the road and parks. He tries to reach Skinner again. Skinner opens the connection. "Skinner." "This is Doggett. Did you get the message from Reyes?" Skinner replies, "Washington says that Reyes left me a message. Something about Scully being the source of the strange DNA." "Ya, we should have guessed that if Scully was working on branched DNA it would be related to her brain cancer." Doggett speculates, "It sounds like the army biowarfare agent detector was sensitive enough to detect the low level of branched DNA that is still in her blood." Skinner says, "I'm on my way back to Washington. This search out here seems like a classic Mulder-initiated decoy." Doggett asks, "Why would Mulder want to throw us off the trail?" "Why would Mulder put Scully in danger in the first place if not to make contact with those who caused Scully's brain cancer? He might not want us trailing him and scaring off those who were attracted by Scully's presentation. By the way, the MUFON website for the Ashville chapter posted the title of Scully's presentation on Friday." Doggett shakes his head. "The Mulder broadcasting system. Okay, I'll see you back in Washington." Doggett breaks the connection. It is now night. He gets out of the rental car and immediately notices a large blue van in the well-lit parking lot. He draws out his gun and walks over to the van and looks into the passenger side window. From behind and by the corner of the dinner, one of the clones shoots Doggett in the back with the same type of built-in weapon that had been used on Reyes. Doggett turns and fires his gun at the clone. Crack! Crack! Crack! The clone's head splinters and blood sprays the wall of the dinner. Doggett's knees buckle as the drug from the crystal projectile reaches his brain. He aims his gun up under the rear of the van and fires the rest of his clip. Gasoline starts to leak onto the pavement. Doggett tries to move away from the van but consciousness slips away. Soon he is in a pool of gasoline. Tuesday. March 29, 2005 Far Out Reyes starts to wake up. “Monica. Can you hear me, Monica?” Reyes opens her eyes and tries to focus on the face that is leaning near. She realizes that it is Dana. She tries to talk but her throat is parched and burning. Dana slips an arm behind Reyes’ head and pulls her head up off of the pillow and puts a glass of water to her lips. Reyes manages to gulp some of the water down. She can feel a bandage on her back where she was shot by the clone. Scully says, “Welcome to Alcatraz.” Monica’s consciousness expands and she realizes that Mulder and the Lone Gunmen are in the room. She croaks out, “The gang’s all here.” Mulder comes over with big goofy grin on his face. “You’re crashin’ the party, Agent Reyes.” Reyes says to Mulder, “As soon as I have the strength to shout, I’m going to make your dumbass ears ring.” Mulder shrugs and raises his hands in mock surrender. Scully lets Reyes’ head sink back into the pillow. Reyes realizes that it is a very comfortable room, not just hospital functional. It feels like she is floating on the very soft bed. She asks, “Where are we?” Mulder asks, “Did you ever want to be an astronaut?” Reyes realizes that it is not just that the bed is soft. She lifts an arm and feels it seem to float above her. Dana says, “Gravity is one sixth Earth’s. We must be on the Moon.” Reyes looks at every face in the room and nobody is laughing. “How long?” Dana explains. “I’ve been here since Sunday. The Knights in shining armor,” She nods towards the others, “Got here yesterday.” She looks at her watch. “Its now about daybreak Tuesday in Washington. They brought you in about half an hour ago.” Reyes asks, “Who are ‘they’?” Byers says, “By a vote of 4 to 1 we’ve been leaning towards aliens, but Scully is still holding out hope for a black government operation.” Langly says, “Earth to Moon in a few hours? No human government is capable of that.” Frohike suggests, “Maybe its alien tech in the hands of humans.” Scully crosses her arms and assumes her best school marm pose, “We’ve certainly seen no aliens and everything here seems like conventional Earth technology.” “Except for the clones,” Remarks Langly. Scully says, “We do not know that they are clones.” Mulder nods and dead-pans, “They might be a set of secretive quintuplets with very privacy-minded parents.” The Lone Gunmen launch into a Scully attack. Byers says, “And a summer cottage on the Moon.” Langly adds, “And a two door space garage with fusion powered space Beemers.” Frohike starts to add a comment but Scully stares him down. Since his mouth is still open he takes the opportunity to say, “So how do we bust out of this joint?” Reyes is feeling stronger and sits up. “Have our hosts told you anything at all?” Dana gives Monica quick summary. “We’ve all been questioned about our knowledge of the branched DNA. It seems like they just want to find everyone who knows that the branched DNA came from a virus-infected human subject.” Reyes gasps, “Dr. Westlake, Doggett and Skinner also know!” Dana asks, “How did you figure it out?” Reyes explains, “I got some help from Karen and Westlake knows.” Mulder says, “But it is not just a matter of knowing the source of the DNA. Westlake does not know about Scully’s previous abduction does he?” Reyes replies, “I didn’t tell him about that, but he knows about the medical facts of Dana's brain cancer.“ "So it may be that Westlake is safe," Scully concludes, “But we have to assume that Doggett and Skinner are at risk.” 4 of 6 One of the clones walks into the room. “Let’s go to the dinning room so Agent Reyes can fortify herself. We will talk.” Everyone follows the clone, Reyes leaning on Scully as she walks, getting used to the low gravity. They walk through what appears to be a modern mansion and come to a large dinning room with food already on the table and three other clones already seated. Everyone sits down except the first clone. “Please, everyone, eat. The situation on Earth has stabilized. We are not going to be able to accomplish abductions of Doggett and Skinner. We have been in contact with Skinner and warned him not share the knowledge that he and Doggett have. If he lives up to his end of the agreement, it will be possible for all of you to go back to Earth. He turns to Dana, "But you are a special problem Dr. Scully.” Scully says, “Surely I am not the only person on Earth who you infected with branched DNA.” One of the other clones says, “We had nothing to do with your infection, Dana.” Mulder smirks, “Pardon us for thinking that you are full of shit.” “Think what you want to think, Fox. We have no way of demonstrating that we had nothing to do with Dana’s cancer. But think about it. Why would we be going to all this trouble now to get you back to Earth if we were just trying to cover up something we did years ago?” Fox replies, “Maybe I don’t think you’re going to take us back. Maybe because the U.S. Army now has the means to detect the genetic engineering that you are performing on people like Dana. I think you just want us to tell you the names of everyone who knows what’s going, so you are acting friendly.” “The truth is much simpler, Fox. First, let me assure you, most of you have heard this story before. And just like before, you will not be permitted to remember it when you go back to Earth. Let me start-“ Mulder cuts in, “What about Dana? You said she’s a special case. Does she get to go back?” “We intend to make a special offer to Dana, but she can go back if she wants to. Now, please, eat and let me explain." Reyes and Langly make selections from various dishes on the table and start to eat. The others select drinks and settle back in their chairs, relaxing in the gentle gravity. The four clones alternate telling bits of the story. The Truth The story starts long ago when an alien space probe reaches the Solar System. There is no biological life inside the probe, just a type of nanodevice artificial life. Upon finding Earth, the nanoscale life form establishes observations of Earth’s ecosystem and starts a project to reincarnate life forms from its world of origin. This is the mode of space travel used by the nanodevice’s creators. Nanodevices are sent across the depths of space to find worlds with biological organisms. The nanodevices then adapt to the life they find and engineer it to become similar to their creators. At this point in the story Fox asks, “How long ago did this alien ship reach Earth?” One of the clones replies, “Over a billion years ago.” Byers says, “What is this crap? You expect us to believe that these alien nanobots have waited a billion years to start genetically morphing humans into aliens?” “Not at all. The first intervention into earth’s biosphere caused a radiation of multi-cellular life forms on Earth. Most died out, but some survived. There have been countless other genetic interventions, leading towards- us. Humans. Yes, my brothers and I are as human as you are. Me and my brothers were produced by isolating the first 8 cells of a normal human embryo and letting them each grow and develop. One of us died many years ago and Doggett killed one of us yesterday.” Reyes feels a sudden rush of panic and demands, “What happened to John?” “Skinner has placed him in a military hospital. He is fine and, for the time being, out of our reach. Now there are only six of us left. We four here and two still on Earth. We were created to work as a team to go to Earth when needed. Rarely do we go to Earth; it has become too dangerous for us. Usually only two of us go at once, agent and backup. Dana’s abduction was a special situation. We only learned of Mulder’s ploy at the last minute and so we all went to Earth. We were unable to find Dana until she reached the conference hall and then we had to act en masse in order to get her out fast. Mostly we work from here on the Moon, monitoring, but in this case we felt the need to act decisively.” Dana asks, “Monitoring what?” Langly replies, “The production of alien-human hybrids.” “No, you are wrong. That effort was completed long ago.“ The clones explain that some 10 million years previously a gene combination was found in Africa that resulted in apes with a form of conscious awareness that the alien nanodevices has been working to develop on earth. Some of the most promising variants of those highly conscious apes were taken from Earth and extensively studied on the Moon. After 15,000 years of experiments, the alien nanodevices were able to genetically engineer those apes into a life form very similar to the original aliens who had sent out the nanodevices. From the Moon base, those alien-like Earth-derived creatures were able to establish contact with other worlds of the galactic empire. They built their own nanodevices and eventually sent their own space craft out from the Solar System to continue the billions of years old process of finding new worlds. “This was all millions of years ago, but I can show you what the outcome was.” Images of various alien-looking creatures flash on the walls. “By the rules of alien intervention, none of these genetically engineered Earth-Alien hybrids is allowed to reside on Earth. Most of them have died off, many built colony ships and migrated to nearby star systems. A few maintain well hidden space bases here in the solar system.” Mulder asks, “These Earth-Alien hybrids are what people on Earth call aliens?” “Unfortunately, sometimes the Earth-Alien hybrids are occasionally seen on Earth, yes. Such events have been rare and are generally illegal. According to the rules of alien contact, only minimally modified biological agents such as me and my brothers are allowed to visit Earth.” The clones continue their story explaining that Earth is still a rich biological incubator and the monitoring of Earth’s evolving life forms continues. It was of interest to see how consciousness would develop on Earth without the massive genetic intervention that produced the Earth-Alien hybrids. But the situation is complex. Over the past billion years the original alien nanodevices diverged and now there are several different alien-derived nanodevice factions in the Solar System. They do not agree on policy in terms of how much intervention should be allowed on Earth. This is a critical time for humans, having entered the technological spiral. The clones explain that some nanodevice factions favor minimal intervention into the affairs of Earth while others insist that Earth’s ecosystem must be protected from damage due to human technology. Each of these different nanodevice factions has their own biological agents. "We are agents for a faction that is mostly in favor of a hands-off policy with respect to Earth. There is another faction that has been engaged in a project that we would like to thwart. This other faction, we call them the ‘interventionists’, believes that the only way to protect Earth’s biosphere is to genetically modify the human population of Earth and turn humans into an environmentally responsible species. Dana is an example of their human test subjects…..a human who has been genetically engineered to be environmentally friendly." Dana says. “You are lying. I have not suddenly become a ‘green’ following my infection with the branched DNA vector.” “No, of course not. You were selected for the gene engineering because you naturally have the mental disposition of one who would never harm the Earth or its web of life. The brain structures in you -and others like you- that give you an instinct for respecting all life, those brain structures and the key neuronal networks they form were mapped long ago. All that remains now is to find a way to make sure that the growth of those key neuronal networks can be engineered into all humans on Earth. It is a race against the ticking clock of technological progress and human population growth. The branched DNA vector that you were infected with had previously been tested and shown to be effective, converting environmentally insensitive humans into tree huggers. You were part of a control group. What would happen to the people of Earth who already have those ‘green’ neuronal networks? The answer was death by uncontrolled brain cell growth. This was bad news for the interventionist program. Even they are not willing to kill off millions of humans in order to save the baby seals." Reyes asks, “So how do you come into this? Why is your “hands-off” faction abducting people like us?” “The branched DNA vectors developed by the Interventionists are an example of technology that will be made possible on Earth by nanodevices that are still decades in your future. Our faction always acts to prevent the introduction of such technological advances before humans on Earth are ready for it. The nations of Earth are only slowly learning how to regulate genetic engineering. Letting this branched DNA technology out of the bag now would be like supplying atomic weapons to the armies of Europe in 1915.” Dana asks, “Why are you telling this to us?” “I think we have the situation contained on Earth. We are now into the phase of making the facts of your branched DNA disappear from the memory of Earth. The cover story will be that the branched DNA you detected was the remnants of a special diagnostics test performed during your treatments for cancer. Everyone who now knows the truth will be made to forget the truth and learn the cover story.” Byers asks, “What do you do, flash your magic Men In Black light?” “It is almost that simple. Memory is chemical. We will inject you with certain chemicals and then have you watch a multimedia extravaganza all about branched DNA and your little vacation here on the Moon. As your neuronal circuits that hold your memories of branched DNA are stimulated by the information about branched DNA, the chemicals will deflate the critical synapses of those circuits resulting in selective memory ablation. The next day, you will watch a second multimedia extravaganza all about our cover story and a new set of chemicals will stimulate the formation of new memories. When we return you to Earth, you will have only patchy and rapidly fading memories of what really happened to you.” Dana says, “But you want something else from me besides my memories.” “Yes, Dana, you are special. You were the only test subject in your group to survive. You now have an unusual brain structure that was reported at a scientific meeting by one of the U. of M. Medical Center doctors working with Westlake on your case. If you go back, neurologists will want to study your brain. Rather than risk that they will again discover and start studying the branched DNA that is now a part of you, it would be safer if you stayed with us. Frankly, we would like you to help us monitor the activity of the Interventionists. They are sure to be working on a new branched DNA vector that will not cause cancer and you have the skills to help us watch for the eventual use of that new vector on Earth.” Reyes is outraged and asks, “How can you ask Dana to give up her life on Earth?” “It is up to her. If she stays here she will join our faction and have access to medical technology far beyond what exists on Earth. She will not be bored. We have a colony of over six million humans here at our lunar base. And if she stays she will be doing important work, helping us protect Earth from possible harm at the hands of the interventionists. Now, we have had our say. Tomorrow we will start our memory microsurgery.” To stay, or not to stay The four clones depart from the dinning room and Reyes asks, "Have you tried following them?" Mulder nods, "There is only one door to this place. It is like an airlock. We can get through the first door but the second door will not open if any of us are in the airlock." Scully says, "Shall we retire to the lounge?" They leave the dinning room and cross the hall to another large room with a central fire place surrounded by comfortable chairs. Scully asks Reyes if she remembers how she got to the Moon. Reyes tries to remember, but her last clear memories are from the meeting with the Westlake lab group. “I have fragments of memories from the parking garage under the U of M Medical Center. I remember shooting at one of the clones.” Scully speculates, “I think they use a drug that causes retrograde amnesia. As soon as I was put into their van, they injected me with something. I have only fragments of memory from my own abduction, even though I know I was conscious when they dragged me out of the conference and put me in their van.” Reyes remembers that she has a bone to pick with Mulder. “Mulder, what were you thinking when you got Dana into this?” Mulder does his almost whining ‘what, little ol’ me?’ routine, “I wanted to find whoever has been experimenting on people like Dana, the “interventionists”. When I learned about her work on the branched DNA in her brain, I thought we could use that information as bait to bring the Interventionists out into the open. I did not realize that the Interventionists do not care if their advanced genetic engineering technology leaks out.” Dana puts a hand on Monica’s arm. “Don’t badger Fox. I had my own motives for wanting to find the source of branched DNA. It was me that got Mulder involved in all this.” Reyes shifts her ire towards Dana, “Don’t tell me you’re thinking about joining forces with these clones!” “Maybe it is an idea that should not be dismissed automatically.” Everyone is looking at Scully like she has three eyes. “Look, I think Fox and I have both been through this before and we both have always decided to go back. Where does that get us? We are left with no idea of what we are really up against. Maybe if I stayed here I could work from this side.” Langly says, “Dude! Do the Mata Hari!” Byers complains, “But what’s the point? We are SO in over our heads. These nanodroids are a billion years ahead of us.” Scully shakes her head. “No, I think its not that bad. The clones indicated that the alien nanodevices are restricted in what they can do on Earth. The aliens have some rules that they have to follow and so only humans like these clones we have met are permitted to interact with humans on Earth. We may be in over our heads, but that just means we have to learn to swim.” Frohike says, “I wonder which of these alien-inspired factions is right. I mean, what if the Interventionists are right? Then you’d be working for the wrong side, Dana.” “It does not sound like these clones want to stop the Interventionists.” Scully explains, “It seems like they just want to keep the Interventionists in line with the “rules of alien intervention .“ Langly asks, “But what if Earth is in a crisis? Maybe this is not the time to be clamping down on attempts to save Earth. Maybe the rules need to be bent- or broken.” Scully holds up her hands. “Maybe. Maybe. But there is something else I have been thinking about. What if there is some way we could go back to Earth with our memories intact?” Reyes asks, “Do you know a way to prevent them from scrambling our memories?” Scully shrugs. “I suspect there might be a way to chemically block the drugs they use to erase memories, but we have no access to drugs and no way to know which drugs they actually use. I suspect that by this time tomorrow, all of you will be back home wondering who is going to win the Final Four.” “But not you?” “What if the change to my brain is something other that what the clones have described? Let me tell you why I ask. I have always had a good memory, but increasingly over the past few years my memory has improved. It turns out that recent research is indicating the cingulate cortex as a part of the brain where certain memories are stored. What if the Interventionists are really trying to find a way to build-up and strengthen our brains and our memory systems so that the clones cannot take our memories away any more? What if the growth of my cingulate cortex is proof that there is a way to do this? And what if the clones can no longer take away my memory? Maybe that is why they want me to stay here.” Mulder grins. “The seems like a lot of good questions, but not a basis for making life-altering decisions.” Byers is doubtful, “Pardon me for objecting Dr. Scully, but your hypothesis sucks. Why would your bulked up cortex prevent drugs from acting on your synapses and dulling your memories?” Dana explains, “I’m led to think along these lines by the nature of the genes that were introduced into my brain cells. Some neurotransmitters have growth-promoting action in the brain. One of the genes that was inserted into my cells was the gene for endocan-2. My CSF now has unusually high levels of endocan-2. Endocan-2 is a neurotransmitter known to be important for memory and there have been some reports that it can stimulate cell division. My guess is that the Interventionists wanted to engineer human brains to be able to make enough endocan-2 so that our memories cannot be erased. I think that the growth of my cortex was a side effect of the elevated endocan-2 levels.” Byers shrugs, “You’re still just guessing.” They hear a commotion in the hallway. The clones carry a body into one of the bedrooms. Dana, Reyes and Mulder go to look. When the clones move away from the bed, Reyes looks at the person on the bed and exclaims, “Its Westlake!” Dana steps out and returns quickly with some bandages and antiseptic and starts to change the bloody bandage on Westlake’s left arm. One of the clones says, “My brothers on Earth had to pick up Westlake, he was refusing to take Skinner’s advice to keep quiet about your case, Dana.” Dana tries to belittle the effectiveness of the clones. "The more people you abduct, the more other people will ask questions." Reyes asks the clone, “Would you let me talk to Skinner?” The clone replies, “Sorry, but I already turned down Skinner’s request to talk to you and I have no interest in creating an opportunity for you to pass information to Skinner.“ The clone leaves. Reyes wonders how the clones abducted Westlake. She figures that the clones just waited until Westlake went home, but would Skinner have left Westlake unprotected? It occurs to Reyes that she never heard how Mulder and the Lone Gunmen were abducted. “Hey, Mulder, how did the clones capture you?” “Scully had a radio transmitter hidden in her large intestine. We followed the clones to an abandoned lumber mill outside of Ashville. By the time we got there, just a few minutes after they did, the ship was already gone. We figured they would go to their base, somewhere on Earth, so we followed the signal from Scully.” Reyes asks, “Did it cross your mind that you should have had some serious backup?” Mulder smirks. “I suppose you think I should have asked the FBI for help. When are you going to admit that the FBI can’t deal with these kinds of unconventional issues? Anyhow, we tracked the signal from Scully’s transmitter into the mountains. We figured that the clones would be trying to figure out who else on Earth knew what Scully knew. One of the clones broke into Scully’s house and we used the video conferencing system of Scully’s computer to tell him that we were prepared to tell the world about the branched DNA they had put into Scully. We had parked about a mile from where we thought their space ship was hidden. Langly was working by satellite relay out of the Lone Gunman van back to the internet connection in the Lone Gunman office. Byers and I had hiked into the forest to where we thought the ship was, thinking we might find a hidden base. They must have known we were coming. They had detected the transmitter inside Scully. By the time we got near the transmitter, the ship was gone, but two of the clones were waiting for us with the transmitter they had taken out of Scully. They took Byers and I with ease then got Langly and Frohike from the van. After their space ship dropped Scully off on the moon it came back and picked up the four of us.” Scully is done re-dressing Westlake’s wound. She pulls up the back of Reyes shirt and sees blood on her bandage. “You might as well let me change your bandage, too.” Thursday. March 31, 2005 Epilogue The drug used by the clones to immobilize abductees is designed to be countered by an antidote. With no antidote, Doggett does not regain consciousness very quickly. By the time he first wakes up, Reyes is by his side. Monica looks up from her book and notices John is watching her. "You sneak! How long have you been awake?" John tries to talk but only croaks. Monica brings him a drink. John feels refreshed and sits up and takes the cup of water from Monica. John is certain that nothing ever tasted better. He hands back the cup and says, "I'm not sure how long I've been awake, but I'm glad you were here." He realizes he is very hungry. Reyes offers to call for food, but Doggett refuses the offer. "Hospital food? Let's get out of here. Where are my clothes?" Reyes says, "Why don't you get up and look for them?" Without hesitation, he gets up, wearing only a diaper. He checks his own diaper and says, "Not bad, but I feel like I could use a shower." Monica says, "The nurse was here an hour ago giving you a sponge bath." Doggett laughs. "You got to watch?" Monica nods, "I told her I was your body guard and not allowed to take my eyes off of you." "Hey, hey. What did she say to that?" "She said I was a luck lady." Doggett finds his clothes in a drawer and dresses. "Monica, I'm so glad they came after me and not you." She looks troubled and raises a hand to her chin. John buckles his belt and strides to her, grabbing hold of her shoulders. "They tried to abduct you too?" She nods, still looking confused. "Its all like a dream. I was attacked in the U of M Medical Center parking lot and that's the last I remember. My gun was found, only one shot had been fired." She puts her arms around John and leans her head on his chest. "We all woke up on a beach this morning. I'm missing a few days of memories." Doggett can't believe his ears. "We? You said 'we'? Everyone is back?" He pushes her away to arm length looking for clues in her face. He sees that Monica is crying. He holds her close again, gently rocking her. Finally she can talk. "Everyone is back except Dana. Mulder and the Lone Gunmen are like me, with scrambled memories. We have no real leads on Scully." John asks, "What do you mean 'real' leads? What do you have?" Monica straightens up and wipes her eyes. "We all have memories of seeing Dana, alive. But those memories are almost like dreams. But-" She fights off more tears. "I remember her telling me that she did not want to come back." Doggett can't believe what he is hearing. "Wait a minute. You saw Dana while you were abducted?" She nods. "We all have memories of seeing her. We went through some sort of- indoctrination. I do not know how to describe it. It was like a school or something. Between sessions we were with Dana. She was the only one not going through the indoctrination. Between the sessions she kept telling us to try to remember, but it is so hard, John, like a dream you feel slipping away, drifting out of your mind." Doggett does not know what to say. Monica adds, "Mulder is crushed. And I remember this; Mulder arguing with Dana, telling her not to do it. That's what he kept saying. 'Dana, don't do it. Dana, don't do it. There is another way.' And Dana kept saying that she had to try, had to try something different." Doggett is totally confused. "Different than what?" Monica shakes her head. "I don't know. It makes no sense. Its just a jumble of fragments. Maybe it will come back in time. But Mulder is terribly depressed." Doggett has never seen such a look of loss and bewilderment on Monica's face. He tries to think of something to say that will snap her out of it. He opts for simple truth. "Come on Monica. I have not eaten in days and I'm very hungry. Let's get out of here. I'll buy you a beer. And I want to hear everything you remember." He puts an arm around her shoulders and they walk out of his hospital room together. But nothing any of the abductees has to say ever has more coherence than their initial debriefing statements. Their memories of the time of their abductions fade into a stereotypical story of Dana telling them that she would be happy staying with her abductors. Mulder's theory is that they were put through some alien brain-washing program and that Scully was tricked into staying with the aliens. He is left with a strange obsessive ritual of looking up at the Moon at night and wondering where Scully is.