TITLE: Aftershock AUTHOR: Terma99 EMAIL: Terma99@aol.com DISTRIBUTION: Please archive at Gossamer: Xemplary. Anywhere else, just let me know. SPOILERS: Fifth Season, some Second Season. RATING: R for violence and language GENRE: X-File (M/S-UST) CLASSIFICATION: X SUMMARY: Agents Mulder and Scully assist the San Francisco Police Department in tracking down a mysterious strangler in the aftermath of a 6.7 earthquake. MY NOTES: Four long months in the creation--anything else you've read by me (mostly MSR) pales in the wake of this baby. The challenge I gave myself was to try to follow in the humble footsteps of Vince Gilligan, and write the best damn X-Files episode I possibly could in novel form. True to the show, I've worked like hell to get my characterization as accurate as possible. That is what I committed myself to. You the precious reader are left to judge whether or not I completed my mission. I *worship* the X-Files with a blind devotion. This is my gift to the rest of the fans who follow with absolute faith as well. The truth is out there... TIME FRAME: Aftershock takes up with the characters during the first few episodes of the fifth season after Scully's recovery --sometime around Detour. At the start of season five, it was obvious their relationship had evolved considerably and I felt I wanted to explore some of those sentiments a bit more closely. I also wanted to devise a way to create a greater intimacy for them without actually disturbing the delicate balance between professionalism and personal involvement. God! I hope you like it. If nothing else, you'll at least learn a thing or two about plate tectonics! EVENTS/LOCATIONS: Some of the events described in this novella are based on my personal experiences during the 7.1 Loma Prieta Quake of 1989. I know what it's like to try to get through a day while pelted by continuous aftershocks. As for locations: I live 40 minutes from San Francisco and visited twice to scope out locations for this work. Some San Franciscans will no doubt inform me that some of my buildings are on the wrong streets, and there aren't any restaurants in Pacific Heights, etc. But the locations themselves are for the most part true to the real thing. The fog effects were digital. DISCLAIMER: Okay, here we go. I don't own them, I'm just borrowing them because the grand high sci-fiction genius Chris Carter invented them and I'm horribly envious. All devoted regards to 1013, FOX, and such. No infringement, no money intended, just one fan's way of worshipping perfection. FEEDBACK: PLEASE!! Give me a reason for living. My toil as a magazine editor is sapping the life out of me! Terma99@aol.com (My friends call me Sharon) Missing chapters? Goto: www.geocities.com/hotsprings/8334/fic.html **************************************************** Aftershock by Terma99 (1/11) Pacific Heights San Francisco, CA THURS: 11:45 PM Special Agent Fox Mulder bent to one knee and pulled the black sheet back from the head of the body lying face-up on the hardwood floor beneath him. Sarah Maples, 28 years old, 5'3", 112 lbs., legal secretary, homicide victim. Apparent cause of death--strangulation. With a gloved fingertip, he brushed the blond strands of hair back from where they had fallen across her neck. Clearly visible in the apartment's dull lighting were dark bruises in the form of fingers and thumbs branded into the pale skin of her throat. A man's hands, thick and strong, but somewhat short, not nearly clearing the circumference of her neck. Still, it was enough to finish the job with crushing force. Mulder chewed his lip in thought and raised his eyes to the span of picture windows across from him, the lights from a nearby restaurant cast a dull bluish hue over the apartment's dark interior. He stood and moved close to the cool glass panes looking down over the rooftops to the white pinpoint lights of the San Francisco Marina several blocks below. Something about this murderer wasn't ringing true, he could feel it. Just then, the view through the window began to shudder accompanied by the slightly queasy feeling of the room gliding out of place. He reached out to balance himself and stepped away from the glass instinctively. And then, it was over. "Aftershock," muttered Detective Meyer, looking up from his spiral notebook. "They hit about once every four to five hours according to those seismologists out at Point Reyes. Except we're only feeling the bigger ones." Mulder nodded and turned to look out the window again. Down on Greenwich St. he could see frightened tenants gathering outside their apartments, jabbering and gesturing toward the rooftops. San Franciscans had reason to be jumpy tonight, just 36 hours earlier this city had been jolted by a major seismic event--a 6.7 magnitude earthquake centered 20 miles south of the city on the San Andreas Fault--the same fault responsible for the devastating 1906 quake. Not necessarily "the big one" but certainly a big enough one to take out quite a few windows and retaining walls and slow traffic along residential areas where a series of apartments and homes were jostled off their foundations in the sandy shoreline bayfill. The SFPD had assured him this particular block of apartments was build on more solid ground. From five floors up Mulder could still detect a slight sway as the aging walls settled back into place. Not a feeling he was accustomed to, unlike the usually quake-carefree Californians who took mild trembles to no more notice than an occasional lightening flash. *Give 'em a Friday night drive through an average DC snowfall--and the story would be quite different*, he mused, shaking the uneasiness from his head. "Well that was an experience." Mulder turned to see his somewhat shaken partner enter from the hallway. She had been downstairs in the lobby querying residents about the victim's movements earlier that day. "Thank goodness I remembered to take the stairs." She crossed the blue-hued hardwood floor to him, tucking an errant strand of copper-red hair behind her ear. "So what do you make of this case, Mulder?" He shifted his weight from one leg to the other glancing behind her at the half uncovered body on the floor. "Something isn't right here, Scully. We've got four victims in three different neighborhoods. Different heights, weights, sexes and even races. All apparently murdered within 36 hours of one another. All apparently by the same pair of stubby thick hands--bad jokes don't get around that fast." Dana Scully folded her arms across the front of her dark double-breasted pantsuit, pursing her lips thoughtfully. "Yet you're still convinced we're looking for the same perpetrator in all four cases?" Mulder nodded slowly, his darkened hazel eyes staring past her to the small window in the north wall of the flat. He led her over to it, pointing to the freshly dusted pane. "This was the only window found open. Fingerprints match those of the victim. Her front door was found bolted and locked. There are no other possible entrances. And according to Det. Meyer, no evidence of forced entry was found at the other crime scenes either." He looked down at his partner as she stood on tip-toe to look out the window and the five floor drop to the alley below. Questioning, she matched his glance--"So you would think the victim knew her assailant. Let him in perhaps?" He agreed, his eyes narrowing, "Except he somehow managed to lock the door on his way out. As well as the front doors of a machine repairman in North Beach, a bicycle messenger in the Mission, and a hairstylist in Excelsior District. None of whom appear to have any known connection to each other-- at least according to their families and neighbors." "Locksmith?" "Possible. SFPD is already following up that lead," he shrugged, crossing back over to the body. Crouching down he pointed to the side of the strangled neck. "These bruises are nearly identical on the bodies of all four victims. No other signs of struggle have been found. All were found fully clothed, their personal effects seemingly untouched." He lifted his eyes panning across the small studio, its small kitchenette, bathroom, and bed nestled between two bookshelves set next to the picture windows; his gaze coming to rest once again on the lifeless body below. He stood, his trenchcoat casting a blanketing shadow over the corpse. "So what would you say Agent Mulder? Do we have a serial murderer on our hands?" Detective Meyer asked, gesturing to the body. "It's still premature to make an absolute assessment, " he answered, stepping closer to the shorter sandy-haired man. "But I'd say a connection is most likely." "A prolific sonovabitch, ain't he?" Det. Meyer scratched his head wearily. "Just what we need right now in the middle of this shaker." Mulder nodded. "We're glad to help you out." Det. Meyer motioned to his partner, "Agent Scully, were you able to gather any more information?" "I spoke to the superintendent and an elderly woman who both live near the lobby," she began. "The super said he was home most of the day and didn't see or hear anything unusual. The woman, Mrs. Ping, told me she saw Maples enter the building at approximately 5:45 PM, her usual time to return from work. She greeted her. Maples was alone as was the norm. Mrs. Ping didn't think she was seeing anyone." "Yet time of death has been estimated at 6 or 7PM," continued Det. Meyer. "If there were any sounds of a struggle coming from this apartment, one of them would have heard it." "And neither one of them remembers hearing anyone ring the buzzer for the lobby door either," added Scully. "Strange..." mumbled Det. Meyer. "A fellow usually makes a mess when he strangles a person. Scuffs the floor at least, knocks over a lamp, at least makes a thump or two. Unless her neighbors are seriously hearing impaired, this guy must have some kind of power over his victims." Scully shot Mulder a quizzical look. Mulder shook his head slowly, "No detective, I think what we've got here is someone who's found a unique way of killing quickly and quietly. Probably by slipping the victim a delayed-action drug, or posing as a maintenance man or bible salesman." "That kind of act takes some practice," added Det. Meyer. "This is the first time we've seen this guy's MO." "Do you have someone looking into the national database?" "The boys at the station are running a search." "At this time the other three bodies are awaiting examination at the city morgue?" Scully asked, flipping her case file open. "Yeah," answered Det. Meyer. "The exams are scheduled for six tomorrow morning." Mulder gave Scully a look she immediately recognized. "I'd like to observe the exam tomorrow, if that would be no problem." "No. No problem at all. Like I said, we could sure use the help." Mulder pulled his card from the inside pocket of his coat and handed it to the detective. "This is my cellphone number. Call us if you turn up anything else." END (1/11) ******************** (2/11) ******************** Exiting the apartment, the pair of agents picked their way through an assortment of crumbled stucco and broken glass to the steep sidewalk running down the dimly lit street to their rented sedan. Pacific Heights had retired for the evening, most of the residents finding their way back inside their tremulous homes for the night. The San Francisco air was dewy with a light fog that anointed the street lights with faint haloes. "Whatta you say Scully? Take a late-night drive with me down Lombard street?" Mulder quipped, nodding vigorously over the hood of the car at her as he unlocked the doors. Scully slid into the passenger's seat stifling a yawn. "I'd settle for a drive down Van Ness, to our hotel." That earned her a genuine grumble as he shut the driver's side door. "Mulder it's..." she paused to glance at her watch. "it's two...three in the morning our time." "Night's still young here in fog city," he sighed, starting the engine. She gave him a raised eyebrow and he chuckled softly pulling out onto the street. ******************** Their Columbus Ave. hotel was nestled between the steel and glass urban forest of the downtown Financial District and the spirited edge of Little Italy's North Beach district. It was an older building with classic bay windows turned toward the arching white cable lights of the Bay Bridge. But Special Agent Dana Scully was in no condition to enjoy the view. Exhausted from a six hour flight and a two hour delay at SFO due to the quake, she was more than ready for sleep by the time she shouldered her bags into the eighth floor room. It was a decent hotel, but far from the luxuries of Union Square's St. Francis. Mulder's rather frugal taste in travel arrangements were all too familiar to her, but she wondered if his choice of North Beach had less to do with the promise of the best restaurants in San Francisco and more to do with Big Al's Adult Book Store one block over at the end of Kearny St.'s infamous red light district. Eighth floor. As close as they could get to the ground. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms more tightly around the pillow. She didn't relish the idea of running for the staircase in the middle of the night. In the room next door she could faintly hear her partner flipping channels on the TV. News reports of the quake now almost three days old still clogged every network. How he managed to function so well on so little sleep was beyond her. To be honest, she wasn't exactly thrilled to be smack in the middle of the aftermath of a major seismic event. Her little shake up in the cracking Pacific Heights stairwell was the first and last time she wished to experience an earthquake first hand. Still, it would have been impossible to talk Mulder out of joining in the chase for a mysterious serial strangler in the midst of a public emergency free-for-all. The SFPD had called in every favor it had to help get a handle on things. The governor had already declared most of San Francisco county a disaster area. She sighed, trying to forget the disaster long enough to fall asleep before her 6 AM date with the coroner. One wall over Mulder had evidently found a late-night talk show that amused him. She took a deep breath, released, and let exhaustion pull her away with the faint echo of his muffled laughter in her ears. ******************** North Beach FRIDAY: 9:30 AM Mulder sat on a wire rimmed sidewalk cafe chair outside one of North Beach's multiple espresso and danish shops. He took a sip from the tall glass mug, wiping the milk froth from under his nose with a napkin. It was some kind of sweet espresso amaretto thing. No one in California just ordered coffee anymore. He set the mug down to cool a bit and broke off a hunk of pastry, careful to let the buttery flakes fall on the table instead of his tie. Presently a yellow checkered cab pulled up and Scully emerged from the back seat with her black filebag. She crossed the street and joined him in the rickety chair across the table from him. "What's that?" she asked, eyeing the steamy mug. "Hmm, not sure yet. 'supposed to have caffeine in it, that's all I need to know. Had breakfast yet, Scully?" She shook her head. Mulder pulled a small yellow bag out from his coat pocket and bounced it in front of her. "Plain toasted bagel...light cream cheese." She smiled and took the bag from him. "Thanks." She started to unfold the neck of the bag and was interrupted by a tap on her wrist. "What did you find?" She set the bag in her lap. "I have to hand it to you Mulder, you certainly have a way of honing in on cases featuring bizarre forensic evidence." "How's that?" "It would seem strangulation was not the primary cause of death," she answered, giving him a wary glance. His expression immediately brightened, "Really?" "Aside from the bruises, we did not find any of the characteristics typical of oxygen deprivation from restriction of the windpipe. No elevated carbon dioxide levels, no vessel damage..." "This keeps sounding better by the minute..." "Wait until I get to the punch line...Our internal examinations revealed an abnormal swelling of the brain and heart tissue in all for bodies coupled with elevated levels of myoglobin in the urine--a condition normally observed only in burn victims." She paused to let this sink in while she made a grab four the contents of her bag. She managed to get the wrapped bagel onto the table before the next bullet-fire inquiry. "And there was no other external evidence, of burned or bruised tissue?" "No. The bodies were clean. The crime lab did a sweep for fiber and hair evidence prior to the autopsies. They weren't able to come up with anything conclusive. However our killer commits these crimes, he does it with a minimal amount of fuss," she added, unwrapping the paper. "Did anything turn up in the blood samples?" "No, interestingly enough, the toxicology screen came back clean...Well, with the exception of a moderate sample of TCH in the bicycle messenger." "And what scientific explanation, Dr. Scully, have you constructed for this quartet of lightly toasted organs?" She managed a fingertip swipe of the cream cheese and paused a moment to pop it in her mouth before answering. "I couldn't tell you. Intense heat? High-voltage current? Neither of which explain the lack of epidermal charring or blistering...I was hoping you'd take over about now with an equally bizarre but brilliant theory." He parried her comment with a self-effacing tilt of the head. "Don't worry, I've got one in the oven that's sure to impress." She separated the bagel and took a bite from the lower half, she chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed, her eyes falling to his mug. "You mind?" she asked innocently. He grinned slightly and pushed the caffeinated beverage towards her. She took a timid sip. "Mmm, sweet...there's espresso in this?" "Somewhere." She craned her neck to look into the cafe window. "You don't suppose they serve regular here, do you?" "I was afraid to ask." Mulder's cellphone began to ring. He pulled it from his coat pocket and answered it. "Mulder." Scully could catch what sounded like Det. Meyer's voice on the other end. "MmmHm...where is that in relation to North Beach?" Mulder turned to his right to look up at the peaks of the Financial District. "We'll be right over." He beeped the phone off. "Better get that coffee to go, we've got another body." ******************** (3/11) ********************************** Embarcadero One was the first of four 40 floor office buildings connected at the base by a bayside shopping center just north of the Bay Bridge. Embarcadero Center was only a 10 minute walk from their cafe down Columbus St. over to Sansome, past the skyline landmark Transamerica Pyramid. The air was cool and pleasant that morning, the fog blanket had retreated a few miles back out to sea. Through the rotating glass doorway in the building's main lobby, the agents were greeted by Det. Meyer and an Embarcadero security guard who signed them in and issued magnetic passes. "At about 7:30 this morning building security was called to the Hewitt Associates' 32nd floor offices," Meyer informed them. "The body of mailroom supervisor Kimberly Kholer was found face up on the floor near the copiers. Victim showed bruises on the sides of the neck and trachea." "Sounds like our boy," Mulder said, following the detective and security guard into the elevator. Scully followed in suit, glancing down a second before stepping over the half inch separation between the tile floor and the elevator. The 32nd floor was a long ride up. The uneasy glance Mulder gave her as she came to stand beside him told her he wasn't all that thrilled about taking the ride himself. Unconsciously, she reached behind her and eased herself against the railing, her eyes on the digital floor readout. The security guard took his pass and held it against an electronic sensor, activating the elevator panel. He punched the "up" button. The doors closed and the car sprang into motion, expressing them to the 20th floor lobby where they switched cars for the final climb. The Hewitt offices occupied the entire 32nd floor. The mailroom was located on at the back end of a plain gray carpeted hallway. The security guard unlocked the door and they entered the bright fluorescent-lit room. The mailroom roared with the sound of a large humidifier nestled near the west wall, followed by racks of paper boxes and duplication equipment. The north wall was set with one-way windows that looked out over the city rooftops. On the east wall were four office-class color copiers. The outline of the body of the mailroom supervisor was taped in red to the floor next to them. "When was the estimated time of death?" Scully asked the detective while Mulder walked over to study the outline. Det. Meyer flipped open his notepad. "Around midnight last night. The victim was working the night shift and the timeclock shows she punched in around 11:15." "Was anyone else working on this floor during those hours?" "Not according to the timeclock." "Did the lobby attendant report seeing anyone suspicious enter the building around that time?" "No, we've interviewed the night guard and she didn't recall anyone arriving other than other nightshift employees." "Is there anyway someone could have accessed the building from another entrance?" "Yeah," answered the guard. "If you got the right pass you can get in through the loading doors." "How many people have access to that entrance?" "Quite a few I'm afraid," answered Det. Meyer. "We're looking into that." "The security cameras in the hallway..." she continued. "Did they pick up anything?" The security guard shook his head. "No ma'am, quite a few of our cameras went down for a while last night--probably due to all the quakes we've been having." Mulder stood up from between the copiers. "Did anyone note the time the cameras started malfunctioning?" The guard looked confused and shook his head. "But you have a tape of what they did pick up, right?" "Yeah, but you won't see much." "Show me." ******************** Back in the lobby the guard cued up the evening's security footage from the 32nd floor hallway. The tape was clear until about 11:35 when Kholer was clearly seen entering the mailroom alone. Then around 11:50 there was a shuddering of the footage followed by intermittent static and finally the camera went dead around 12:15. "Rewind to 11:50," Mulder asked the guard as he stood behind him eyeing the playback. "Stop there," he added when the camera began to lose the image briefly. Mulder tapped his finger at the screen. "11:50 last night we were being shaken from the fifth floor of a Pacific Heights apartment building." He reached into his coat pocket and removed the morning's Chronicle, unfolding the front page. "When was the estimated time of death of the other murders?" Meyer reached for his notes. "Uh, 6:30PM Tuesday, 1:30AM, and 5:30PM Wednesday..." "...and 6:30PM Thursday," Mulder finished, handing the front page earthquake report over to the detective. "All of the murders were committed within forty minutes after each aftershock." Det. Meyer eyed up the times. "Well, I'll be damned. We've been shaking so much around here I didn't even think to make the connection." Scully moved closer to the two men, she touched her partner's arm to get his attention. "Mulder? What are you saying?" "Look at it this way, Scully. Somehow this guy was able to breach the security systems in this building, and get in and out of the mailroom unnoticed. I don't think it's a coincidence that the cameras went black within half an hour of the last seismic event." "They could have been damaged by the quake." Mulder turned back to the security guard. "When did the 32nd floor cameras come back online?" The guard fiddled with the VCR a minute before replying, "Looks like they straightened themselves out around 12:45." Mulder gave Scully a confirming look. He then turned back to the detective. "I think you should have some of your people re-examine the crime scenes for evidence of electronic tampering." "Electronic tampering?" "Yeah, we've got what appears to be some creative electrical effects on the bodies as well." Det. Meyer looked at Scully, questioning. She explained the chief medical examiner's findings in brief, adding that electrical shock could be a cause of the tissue damage they observed. "Most of the other locations were private residences," resumed the detective. "What should we be looking for?" Mulder tapped his index finger on his lower lip, "I don't know... try security systems, VCRs, computers, anything plugged in that seems out of whack. Oh, and check out the Pacific Heights' security door. It runs on an electrical release system." "Okay, we're on it." Mulder turned and brushed his hand over his partner's shoulder. "Come on Scully, we're gonna take a drive up the coast." "Where?" "Point Reyes, earthquake country." ******************** (4/11) ********************************** Point Reyes National Seashore 1:30 PM "Hey Scully, come take a look at this." Mulder had wandered up the trail that ran past the Point Reyes Seismological Laboratory. His sleeves were rolled up and his suitcoat tossed over one shoulder as he turned to call to her-- the pleasant afternoon breeze tousling his hair across his forehead. They had taken the scenic hour drive north up Hwy. 1 over the steep sea swept Marin Headlands to the yellow grasslands of the triangular land formation known as Point Reyes. On a map, the landmass looked like a slice of pie separated and pushed northwards from the mainland by the deep cut of the San Andreas fault. Here is where California did indeed look like it was being pushed out to sea. Scully closed the distance between them, squinting into the warm sun. Mulder had stopped at the edge of a short wooden fence. "According to the sign here. This fence moved eight and a half feet during the 1906 quake," he said, pointing further up the path where it appeared the second half of the white picket fence had scooted south quite a distance. "That's right," said a new voice coming up the path behind them. "This fence used to be connected. You both have the dubious honor of standing directly on the mighty San Andreas." Scully looked down and stepped to her right. "Don't worry," he laughed. "The ground won't open up on you." The young, yellow-haired man held his hand out to her. "You must be Agents Scully and Mulder," he noted, shaking their hands. "I'm Russ Nilsen, Point Reyes Seismologist. They told me you two were coming up." He gestured enthusiastically up the trail. "You see how this path runs up here 200 feet or so and then there's a gradual rise walling the trail at a 70 degree angle? That's the fault. That six foot rise is the point where the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate collide. This path is just a slice of the 800 mile-long San Andreas fault system." "How far does the fault move day to day?" Scully asked, eyeing the disrupted fence line. "We measure a drift rate of as much as two inches per year. The fault moves horizontally, a type of displacement known to geologists as a right-lateral strike-slip. During the 1906 earthquake, roads, fences, and rows of trees that crossed the fault were offset several yards, and the road across the head of Tomales Bay was offset almost 21 feet, the biggest offset on record!" "How far has the fault moved since the quake a few days ago?" "Well, a major earthquake creates an offset in only one section of the fault at a time. There are sections that remain "locked" and quiet over a hundred or more years while strain builds up--then, in great lurches, the strain is released. The quake we experienced last Tuesday occurred in one of these locked sections just 20 miles south of San Francisco near Crystal Springs Reservoir. It displaced a stretch of highway by six and a half feet near the epicenter." "Are earthquakes of this size at all predictable?" Mulder asked. The younger man gave a conservative nod. "We have a time-frame that we can work with. Large earthquakes occur at about 150-year intervals. The last large earthquake on the southern San Andreas occurred in 1857, that section of the fault is considered a likely location for an earthquake within the next few decades. The San Francisco Bay Area has a slightly lower potential, since the 1906 quake occurred under a hundred years ago. But there's still a good chance of a magnitude 7 occurring near here in the next 30 years. The San Francisco Bay Area has one of the highest earthquake hazards in the world." Mulder nodded thoughtfully, "I'm particularly interested in what you can tell us about the aftershocks we've been experiencing." "Hmm, I can probably better illustrate that on the seismograph. Why don't you follow me inside." Inside, the Point Reyes Seismological Laboratory amounted to one part laboratory and two parts visitor center and natural history museum. Nilsen lead the agents past various indigenous wildlife displays with stuffed bobcats and snakes to the readily visible seismograph stationed near the back wall. Nilsen directed them over to it. "We record earthquakes via a world-wide seismographic network. Each seismic station in the network measures the movement of the ground at the site. This seismograph is basically a pendulum mounted on a spring recording ground vibrations at frequencies of about 1 cycle per second," he said, pointing down at the readout pen drawing an ink line on a sheet of paper mounted to a slowly rotating drum. As they watched the pen began to waver a bit left to right. "It looks like we're moving right now," Scully noted warily. "Oh, those small wiggles you see are caused by local disturbances or noise. You want to see some real noise, take a look at the wall here. These seismograms have recorded all of the activity over the last three days." The paper records were stretched out flat and tacked to the wall like music notation with tightly aligned parallel lines drawn by the pen with each turn of the drum, marking the passage of time. On the far left was the frantic scribble of the recent 6.7 magnitude quake. The following pages to the right were the records of the periodic aftershocks highlighted and dated clearly in red pen. "I see you've recorded a lot more ground movement than the local media," Mulder noted. "I believe I read about only five aftershocks since the quake." "Thousands of small quakes occur in California each year. Humans usually only feel those with a magnitude of 2.0 and up," answered Nilsen, regarding the seismograms with affection. "Are there any signals, emissions of any kind that accompany an event?" "Well, we do observe what are called P- and S-waves that travel deep within the earth's crust. When a fault slips vibrations are released. The vibrations are of two basic types--compression waves that travel fast through the earth and are known as primary or "P" waves and then the shear or "S" waves which arrive later." "Could an average person detect these waves?" "Some are low frequency, some high frequency. The high frequency waves are often audible. In an earthquake, people may feel an initial thud or shock of the P-wave, followed a few seconds later by a swaying or rolling motion that marks the S-wave. Yeah, you could certainly get a feel for it, if you were paying attention." ******************** "P-Waves, Mulder?" He glanced over at her, sure enough, he was met with a patented "Mulder-you're-nuts" look that only Scully could have perfected into a fine art. This was the left-eyebrow version that also required a slight twist of the lips. "I don't think it's a coincidence our killer acts out his aggressions after each aftershock," he reminded her in a mildly amused tone. They were driving out route 12 past the Point's historic cattle ranches, winding their way back to the freeway. "Look Scully, cows..." "I see them, very nice. But just how do you suppose these waves are affecting our suspect?" Mulder slowed the car, up ahead a team of ranchers were driving a head of steer across the road. They came to a stop and he turned to give her his full attention. "Man's ability to communicate with the earth pre-dates civilization. The Aztecs were said to have been able to predict weather patterns by listening to voices deep within the earth...not unlike the shamanistic practices of the Early American..." Mulder's photographic-memory slideshow was clicking blithely by as he rattled off half a dozen ridiculous references. Scully quickly brought him back to the point. "So what you're saying, in effect, is that these aftershocks are releasing detectable high and low frequency waves that somehow drive this man to kill?" "Uh, huh." "Did you consider the possibility that these events are instead triggering a suppressed trauma in this man, causing him to act aggressively towards the closest bystander? For example, maybe he experienced a loss or injury during an earthquake as a young boy and those memories are just now resurfacing for him?" "Oooo, when did you start snuggling up with my psychology books?" "I'm serious Mulder." "No, it's not that his particular timing doesn't fit the trauma profile; it's the ease at which he's able to get at these people. A trauma victim is often paralyzed by his fear or overwhelmed by a need to relieve his anxiety through avoidance behavior or aggressive action. Those responses are incongruous with the carefully planned pre-meditated murders we're observing-- the complete lack of struggle or fiber evidence. "How was he able to breach security, or activate electrical panels? He's got something more about him that's not fitting into place. I don't know exactly what it is yet, but I'm willing to bet our quivering pair of plates are going play a big role in it." ******************** (5/11) ******************** North Beach 5:30 PM Later that evening found them dining at one of North Beach's popular Tuscan restaurants. They sat on stools across from each other at the corner of the faux onyx bar waiting for their meal. The restaurant was crowded for a typical Friday night but the service was fast and efficient--even if their waitress was sporting an arrangement of metallic body art that ringed her earlobes and eyebrows, with an accent or two through her lower lip. "I guess you need to be on the lookout for more than a hair in your soup," Scully commented wryly, noting the waitstaff's unique appearances. A spiky blue and red haired fellow was ringing the register to her left, his tongue stud flashing as he told a customer "thank you, come again." Mulder laughed outright at her observations, stabbing at his Caesar salad with a fork. Scully turned to him leaning on her elbows with a curious half smile of her own. "Mulder, what's up with you?" she asked with growing amusement. "You've been irrepressibly happy ever since we landed at SFO? What is it about this city?" He looked up at her, stupefied--caught in the act so to speak. And was surprised to find himself suddenly slightly nervous by her question. Happy? Sure he was happy. Happier 'n hell that she was sitting across from him, smiling at him, breathing, bumping her knee into him each time she reached across to pluck a crouton out of his salad. "Don't know...maybe it's the Pacific air..." he mumbled, unconvincingly. "Are you sure you don't want me to order you a salad?" he asked slyly, trying to change the subject. She stopped, a pilfered crouton balanced at the edge of her mouth between index finger and thumb--caught in the act herself. "No Mulder, I'm not that hungry," she lied coolly, and crunched down on it unabashed. He grinned and resumed stabbing his romaine. Maybe he was so damned happy just from the realization that his mind could easily conjure up this same scene, except with him alone without a pair of blue eyes to remind him there was more to living than surviving the next case. "You know, I think I have you figured out..." she continued, pausing to take a sip of sparkling water. He looked up from his bowl, mid-chew--now most certainly nervous. "You've got a twin. An identical twin, and the two of you switch off when I'm not looking." "What?" he chuckled, resuming his munching. "Yeah, that would explain why you never sleep. You've got a second team. One a little more jovial than the other." She blinked up at him, seemingly very pleased with herself for this deduction. "Hmm, well don't worry Scully, I'm sure "moody" Mulder will be making an appearance long before this case is solved..." The glasses hanging from their stems on the overhead bar rack began to jingle and clink together. Their waitress holding two pasta bowls stopped a few feet from their seat at the bar and turned her face up to the swaying track lighting strung across the open warehouse ceiling. Guests stopped mid-swallow and fell silent as the room shuttered with a low rumble and then stopped. And then, just as if someone had pushed the play button again, the room came back to life, instantly filled with the second half of sentences and the busy sound of forks, knives and cups colliding softly. Their waitress resumed her job and set their meal down on the bar in front of them with a shrug. Mulder glanced at his watch and shot his partner a grave look. "Eat fast Scully, we'll be getting a call soon." ******************** Golden Gate Park 6:45 PM The hulking horned beast that filled the circle of Mulder's flashlight beam snorted indignantly--spewing a film of snot from its cavernous nose before using a deep grunt and with complete lack of grace, heaved itself down into the mud. "I forget, is it buffalo or bison?" Scully was panning her flashlight beam across the chainlink fence that housed one of Golden Gate Park's lesser-known attractions--the buffalo paddock. "I don't know Mulder, but they sure do smell the same," She replied, wrinkling her nose. The call came approximately fifteen minutes into their pasta. Sure enough, the suspect had struck in due fashion: The only difference, his strike was slipping, his victim had survived. By the time the FBI arrived on the scene an ambulance had spirited the unresponsive woman away to SF General and the SFPD was busy interviewing a key witness and developing a composite. Other officers were combing the park and surrounding neighborhoods for a glimpse of the suspect. Mulder and Scully were surveying the scene by flashlight. Footprints near the paddock indicated the suspect followed the woman for some time before closing in to grip his hands around her throat once they cleared the chainlink fence and entered a grove of tall aromatic eucalyptus trees. Mulder was crouched close to the ground tracking the damp prints when Det. Meyer approached them from the squad car where the officers were questioning the witness. "The girl says she was jogging with the victim up the pathway here when her friend stopped a few feet back to adjust her shoe. She kept going until she came to the edge of the paddock and was trying to pet a buffalo when she turned around to see her friend walking with a short dark-haired man towards these trees," he explained, pointing up to the towering eucalyptus surrounding them. "She said it looked as if her friend knew the guy or something, he had his hand lightly on the back of her neck. She called to her has they moved out of view, grew concerned, and ran up here in time to see the guy choking her. Once he saw her approaching, he let go and ran off into the brush over there," Mulder stood and followed Scully over to the edge of the grove where the foliage had been clearly disturbed. "The trampled escape route the suspect took ends at the street side. We're questioning people, but haven't been able to determine which direction he went from there." Scully peered back towards the patrol car where the witness was sitting, talking to the sketch artist. "It looks like they're finishing the composite--can we speak to her now?" Meyer invited her to proceed. Scully stopped near the patrolmen at the door of the car and with her flashlight illuminated the sketch pad the artist still held in his hand. The face was square with dark curly hair and stubble. An average nose, small eyes and somewhat larger than average brows. "Our suspect appears to be an Italian-American, about five and a half feet, with a stocky build and small thick hands," described the artist waving his hand over the sketch. "He was last seen wearing gray-blue overalls with a striped short sleeved shirt and heavy construction boots. The witness says he appeared to be carrying a few tools in a large pocket on his pants leg." "What kind of tools?" He shrugged. "She couldn't say." A patrolman who was finishing his notes stepped aside so Scully could approach the girl. She stepped off the curb and steadying her hand on the roof dipped her head slightly so she could see her sitting, shaken in the open back seat of the car. "I'm Agent Scully from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I'd like to ask you some more questions..." The girl nodded timidly, her arms wrapped tightly around her waist. She was wearing a longsleeved jogging outfit with her wavy brown hair pulled back in a matching band. "What's your name?" Scully asked gently. "Jenna...Jenna Abraham." "Jenna, did either you or your friend..." "Amy," the girl interjected. "Your friend Amy," Scully calmly emphasized. "Did either of you notice you were being followed?" "Unh, uh...we were jogging in the open...it was still light out," she said defensively, as if reciting a handbook for women's safety. "We come through here all the time." "Did you see any suspicious vehicles slowing near you." "No. There were still people around here then. We weren't exactly alone, you know." Scully eased down so she could match eye level with the girl. "Jenna, you didn't do anything wrong," she said, carefully capturing the girl's nervous gaze. The girl crumpled then and lowered her face, speaking into her hands. "I didn't even see him coming. I didn't even think anything was wrong at first. I...I thought they must know each other because she wasn't trying to get away from him, she was just walking away. And I didn't even think to shout or do anything at first. They seemed like they knew where they were going..." she was beginning to cry, but kept talking through her fear. "I got there too late; he was choking her and she was just standing there, staring straight ahead like nothing was going on..." "Was he restraining her?" The girl looked up suddenly then, struck calm all at once with tears on her cheeks. "No...no, not at all. It was like he was barely touching her, you know? He didn't look as if he was really trying to hurt her. Just...he had his hands on her neck was all and she was just standing there." Scully narrowed her eyes a bit in thought. "You told the patrolman you saw tools. Can you describe them?" The girl shook her head slowly. "They were in his pocket on his l eg. Like I don't know...a screwdriver or something, maybe a handle..." she began to make a gripping motion with her hand. "You didn't see anything that might resemble a stun gun or electrical shock device?" The girl shook her head again. Scully patted the girl's hand and started to stand. The girl reached for her arm to stall her. "I um...you know I think I smelled something. I just remembered when you said electrical, because I thought I smelled something like, you know, when you burnout your hairdryer...It didn't make any sense to me--I forgot about it until now." Scully paused, looking down at her thoughtfully for a minute. "Thank you Jenna, that's very helpful to us." Her partner was just finishing up with Det. Meyer as Scully left the patrol car and met them back up the hill near the paddock. Mulder looked pleased about something. He came up to her and leaned in close, speaking in a subdued tone only she could hear. "Meyer and the others reexamined the crime scenes. They found minor electrical shorts and scoring on various items in the victims' homes. One had faint scorches around the telephone jack and in the receiver, another had some partially melted wires in the home security alarm panel, and an Embarcadero electrician reported tripped fuses for the cameras in the lobby, elevator landings and the 32nd floor hallway. In each case, the equipment was still operational, which is why it was missed." "Did they check the lobby door in Pacific Heights?" Mulder shook his head. "Not yet, they had the building evacuated temporarily for earthquake inspection. They'll let us back in there tomorrow afternoon." "Well, you'll be pleased to hear this. Our witness just told me she smelled something akin to an electrical short when she came upon the assailant in the grove. She also remembers seeing him carrying some type of hand tools in his pocket." Mulder thought it over a second. "An electrician. Someone who knows security and telephone systems..." "That would be my guess," she concurred. "And someone who's probably also capable of creating or using a device to emit an electric pulse, effectively shocking his victims into submission." "That's one way to get people to notice you," he added grimly. "So we know he's capable of tripping electrical devices, but how was he able to unlock and lock dead bolts?" Mulder's eyes were dancing excitedly, "I don't know, yet--but we're getting closer." ******************** (6/11) ********************* San Francisco General Hospital SAT: 9:30 AM Mulder eased back into the chair, trying to get comfortable. As if it was possible for him to get comfortable in the cold, sterile hospital hallway. He had logged too many hours recently in a very similar situation, staring at the blank walls, the flat ceiling, waiting. Waiting for news, waiting for change, waiting for resolution. He dug around the inside pockets of his coat searching for an orphaned seed or two. Lint, a long-forgotten ticket stub, and some empty wrappers were the best he could come up with. He was about to give in and go find the snack machine when the door finally opened slowly and Scully slipped out, quietly shutting the door behind her. Her eyes to the floor, she came over to him and sat on the edge of the chair next to him with a sigh. He sat up and leaned closer to her, she looked somewhat upset, haunted, he thought. She sat very still for a moment, collecting herself before she spoke. "I'm afraid we're not going to find what we're looking for here, Mulder." "Were you able to talk to her?" "No. I don't think anyone will be for a very long time, she's..." Scully stopped again and brushed her hand over her lips trying to find the words. "She's suffering from acute retrograde amnesia. Her short term memory function is impaired. She can't remember much more than the last hour or so at a time. She keeps asking where she is, and they have to keep telling her over again from the beginning." "Is this condition permanent?" he asked softly. Scully shook her head, "Her physician isn't sure yet. According to her mother she seems to only recall events from many years ago, nothing recent. As with the other victims they did find some fluid and mild swelling around the cerebrum; and when she was brought in she was experiencing an atrial arrhythmia which now appears to be under control." "Could electrical shock have caused this?" "Very likely, but they also found something else--a dangerous reduction in her serum electrolyte levels, which can not be explained by electrocution alone. She had abnormally low levels of potassium, calcium, sodium and magnesium which is usually only found in patients suffering from Addison's Disease or kidney failure--either of which would have certainly kept her from jogging last night. "Mulder, if our suspect is shocking his victims, then they would be frozen in place, unable to move, yet this girl's friend saw her gently being led away by him seemingly willingly...and we still don't understand how he's storing or releasing the charge." Mulder straightened suddenly and laid his hand on her forearm to interject. "Maybe that's *exactly* what he's doing when he kills --recharging." Scully looked truly puzzled. "Electrolytes are dissolved charged particles in the body, right?" She nodded. "If my two semesters of forgotten college chemistry serve me, potassium and the other ions you mentioned all carry a positive charge." "Yes they do." "You know that bizarre but brilliant theory I've been working on? I think it's about ready to get a fork stuck in it." ******************** Pacific Heights 11:00 AM "Mulder...Your theory?" He met her with a mischievous grin and whispered, "I'm working on it..." They were waiting along with Detective Meyer and an electrician for the superintendent to unlock the front doors of the apartment building they investigated their first night in San Francisco. Mulder was fidgeting with impatience. He was close, very close, and he knew somehow this apartment building was going to give it up to him any minute now. Once inside, the electrician set upon the front security door searching for damage. When he pronounced the door in good working condition despite its age, Mulder had him remove the resident doorbell panel just outside the lobby. It too appeared to be in good order. "Maybe he didn't take the front door," Mulder reasoned to himself rushing back outside, looking up at the dark stone building. Scully followed him around to the west side and into the filthy narrow eight foot alleyway choked with the apartment's trash bin. Mulder was gazing up at the rusty fire escape, unreachable from the ground. Or was it? To her surprise he flipped the lid closed on the dumpster and made a leap up onto it with a loud crashing echo. This brought him five feet closer to the fire escape landing. "Scully, hand me those crates." There was an assortment of milk crates half- stacked between the dumpster and the wall. She reached down and selected a couple. He took them from her and stacked them together making to stand himself on them. "You know Scully, I might be making a big mistake...this may require a trip to the laundry." "I hope you're not doing this to impress me," she called up after him as he made a clean leg-up using the crates to step over onto the escape landing. He bounced himself on the landing a moment checking it for stability as if his half-jump couldn't have ripped it from the aging wall first. It seemed to be pretty solid. "Not bad for an old G-man, huh?" She answered him with an uneasy squint. He took to the stairs and climbed the rattling metal platforms until he was nearly even with the roof's edge. He gracefully pulled himself up and over the low wall, landing on the building's flat roof out of her line of sight. In a moment or two his head popped back over the edge looking down at her. "Scully, go back inside and find the door to the roof. It's locked from up here--I'll need you to let me in." "Okay!" she called up and made her way back inside to the stairs. Once she arrived at the top of the fifth floor landing she could hear Mulder's impatient tapping on the metal rooftop door just up the hall. She pushed it open for him and he rushed into the hallway, pausing for a moment, first eyeing the rooftop exit and then the victim's apartment door just a few feet down the hall. He raised his eyebrows at her. "That's a little convenient, don't you think?" She simply stood back watching as his odd thought process unveiled itself. He walked over to the victim's door and bent at the knees to look closely at the door handle and jiggled it. It was locked as was the deadbolt above it. He touched his finger to the keyhole a moment and then fiddled in his coat pocket, removing the rental car keys. He stood then and waved the dangling keys limply in front of the knob. "Mulder?" This was certainly growing stranger by the minute-- even for him. "Too heavy..." he mumbled, turning to her. "Scully, you got a hairpin, paperclip, or something in your pocket?" "Hmm?" He looked at her eagerly. She reached in her deep coat pockets fumbling around. "Something small, metallic..." She wasn't coming up with much. "Anything..." he pleaded. "Oh wait," she said, and reached for her ear, removing the thin metal loop with tiny drop pearl. He took it from her, dangling it between his first finger and thumb. "Nice." He crouched back down in front of the door knob and delicately placed the metal loop against the lock and just as carefully pulled his fingers away. The earring stayed in place catching the light from the window as the tiny pearl shimmered and relaxed against the keyhole. Mulder turned his head back to her, his hazel eyes bright. "The locks have been magnetized," he said with wonder and moved her earring to the deadbolt where it too hung suspended. She took a cautious step forward. "And this is evidence of...?" Mulder was staring past her back up the hall to the roof door speaking more to himself than her. "He can reset the tumblers with a focused magnetic field, letting himself in." "He can what...?" He looked down at her then, an odd half-smile crossing his lips. "That theory you've been so patiently waiting for, here it goes... I believe our killer is and of himself a walking electromagnet. He has an ability to generate electrical current and magnetic fields. It would explain the physical evidence at the crime scenes and his methods for committing them." As predicted, he was met with his partner's careful gathering of critical analysis--punctuated by a tiny perplexed frown. "Mulder, the human body isn't capable of safely carrying an electrical charge more powerful than your average static zap from a doornob; and yet you're claiming that this man possesses an unknown ability to collect and store current capable of causing serious internal tissue damage?" "Essentially, yes." He shrugged plausibly, waiting for her to continue. "Have you considered the much more likely explanation that he's simply devised a method of rigging himself with electrodes or small insulated wires that might not be noticeable to the passing eye?" He blinked down at her. "Certainly, but why is there lack of burn evidence on the skin of the victims?" "If he's able to make full contact with the skin first before applying the current there would be minimal epidermal damage..." "True, but wouldn't he also be releasing the charge into himself as well as his victims if contact is being made? How is he able to survive it?" She hadn't considered that yet and pursed her lips a moment in thought. "I don't think we'll know exactly how he does it until we find him and search him," she added. "We haven't ruled out a locksmith yet, it's not uncommon for handymen to magnetize their tools for holding screws and nails in place, and our Golden Gate Park witness did note he was carrying tools of some kind." Mulder dipped his head to try and bring her closer to his understanding of events. "The girl in the hospital Scully, she was drained of her body's natural positive charge. It's been theorized that when the body dies it releases an energy field, some people even go so far as to call it the soul. In the 1890s a French physician named Roucher captured photographical evidence of this energy exiting the bodies of his terminally ill patients at the exact moment of death..." That earned him a seriously raised eyebrow. "Are you suggesting that this man is capturing his victim's souls?" "He's certainly capturing their ability to live." "You still haven't explained to me how all this connects to 'voices from the earth.'" "Okay," he conceded, "that's the other part of my theory still in progress..." "You must be slipping Mulder, you usually have it all figured out in the first few hours, then spend the rest of the time convincing everyone you're shamelessly correct in every detail." "I do?" She answered him with a smirk. "Scully, how can you stand me?" She plucked her earring from the lock. "You're an acquired taste, Mulder." ******************** 1:00 PM Scully stood at the roof's edge looking out over the tops of the upscale apartments and homes out to the bay waters to the steep shores of Alcatraz and beyond to where the fog was beginning to billow up against the red cables of the Golden Gate suspension bridge. The wind was picking up slightly, sending a chill through her and she hugged her arms to her chest. It was more than just the incoming fog that made her shiver, it was looking into the pale blank eyes of the girl in SF General earlier that morning. It was as if part of the girl's mind had been removed from her skull, carved out--leaving her with only distant echoes of her past. Scully tried to shake the thought and turned back toward the roof in time to see her partner several feet away on hands and knees, face almost to the tarred surface searching like he did for the unobvious in the most ridiculous of locations. In a moment he sprang back up to his haunches animatedly pointing out to the detective some scuff or minor scrape to the roof's already well-trampled and warped texture. It made her smile. Five years together and he was still able to amaze her with his boyish enthusiasm. Never a dull moment if you're working a case with Fox Mulder, the most misunderstood agent in the Bureau. She was grateful for it—this scene playing out to her on the rooftops was one she would keep with her, something she could hold onto and remember to get her through the dimmer times. Not every pleasant memory was without its darker half. Memory, it was something she held sacred, and very, very personal. That girl had something indescribably intimate taken from her through violence, fear, shock...she still wasn't sure, except for the fact that it shook her to the core. The cancer that had been working its way inward, invading her and violating her not so many months before had also carried with its promise of pain a much greater threat to her--the threat of stealing her memories. She had never spoken of it, but it had been by far the symptom she had feared the most. Would she have even noticed when her past began to drift away? How would it have begun? Would she have forgotten what she ate for dinner, or forgotten who she had eaten it with? This was why this moment, this rooftop, this case, this city, was now so much more than just a day at work to her--it was an experience that combined with all the other experiences of her life and came to make her who she was, they defined her. And as are the eyes of many who take a glancing blow with death, she now looked at each moment with greater clarity, greater reverence. Which was how she looked at him now as he stood to move toward her. *Jesus, Scully...don't look at me like that. At least not here anyway...* He crossed to her from where he had been tracing the path of the killer across the rooftop to the now notably magnetized roof exit door. As involved as he had been in connecting the dots, some long-distance sonar in his mind was telling him Scully was pulling out of range and if he wanted to keep her within certain boundaries, he'd better send out the search party quick. She was standing looking over at him with a very serious, very open expression. He wasn't sure if he was welcomed into this contemplation, but one look in her direction had enveloped every other investigative thought in his head, extinguishing it. He believed he asked the detective to meet him downstairs and perhaps the man had sonar of his own because he had made a very brisk exit back into the building. "Hey Scully, what's up?" he tried to ask casually, as he met her at the roof's edge. She tilted her head to look up at him, not yet willing to break the gaze. Her hair was sweeping up and around her face, dancing across her cheeks like tiny fingers. A curiously tender smile curving her lips. "I was thinking," she said in a clear bright tone. "'bout what?" he asked, and turned to lean against the waist- high ledge, needing to escape her large blue eyes for just a moment. He looked down, in the courtyard below a large hairy man in a sleeveless T-shirt was watering his lawn with a leaking hose. "About how we choose to live..." she broke off. *This one's going to be serious...I wonder if I'm up to it right now. * He choked down the defensive impulse of making some half- handed wise crack about inflatable lawn furniture and took a deep breath instead, easing himself against the wall, and turned to face her. To his relief she was looking out at the water. "How's that?" he managed. "Why did I choose to join the FBI?" she said without expression. It was a rhetorical question. She was opening up to him, preparing to unveil another layer of herself to him. As much as he wanted to know her this way, to let her uncover herself to him, he was never quite prepared for it--never confident of how he would respond. He felt a touch surreal as if the ground was moving under him again and was thankful for the wall against his side. "And why do I choose to stay..." she finished. He felt something tighten in his chest. She was talking about her recent illness and it's all too obvious connection to their work. His work, his quest. There was a moment of silence. Was he supposed to answer for her? She dipped her head and looked down, gathering her thoughts. "You talked to me about fate once Mulder. About having no personal choice in what we do." Yes he had. It was the most sane thing he could think of a few years back to explain the horrendous couple of weeks they had just experienced--his father, her sister, gone in a blink of the eye. She took a breath and looked directly into his careful hazel eyes. "I don't think I can believe in that anymore. Not after the last few months." The knot in his chest had taken another full turn taking his stomach with it. My god, she wasn't about to leave him, was she? Not here, not today, not on this rooftop with the wind in her hair... "I have to believe I stay because there is nothing else in this world that I would trade for it." She paused, letting this sink in. Mulder did everything he could do to stand perfectly still. His mind was flip-flopping on him. What the hell was she saying? He most certainly wasn't up for this. If she didn't finish her thought soon, he was going to take his chances and leap over the wall onto the fat wet man below. "Do you understand what I'm saying, Mulder?" her chin dipped slightly, her expansive blue eyes were burrowing themselves into him. Hell no, it would take a thousand years before he could ever begin to get the most basic understanding of her. He didn't think he'd ever get that much time. It wasn't that far to the ground... "I think so..." Did he speak? He didn't know how he could have spoken right then. She lowered her eyes and gave a small sound that was like a sigh and a laugh, and she squeezed his hand. "Come on Mulder, let's get you inside before you completely lose track of this case." Numbly, he followed her retreating form back inside like a small child being led from the playground. ******************* (7/11) ***************** Post St. Police Station 3:00 PM The Post St. police station was centered halfway between the elegant temple spires of the Japanese Cultural Center and Kabuki Theatre and the decaying Hayes Valley projects. Interracial tensions, roving neighborhood gangs, recent emigrants, hard-working laborers, and drug dealers called this part of the city home. Mulder held the door for his partner has they rushed up the dingy stone steps and inside to the front desk. Mulder pulled his badge as did Scully. "FBI...Agents Mulder and Scully, we received a call from Inspector Meyer who should be arriving shortly." The receptionist looked up briefly eyeing the badges. "You're here for the Pirelli interview?" she asked. "Yes," Scully answered. "We understand she hasn't been questioned yet." "Not yet," the woman answered. "They're still trying to track down an interpreter. You can go ahead upstairs, however. Room 5." "Thanks." Upstairs the hallways smelled musty with aged fog- and mold-soaked stone walls--a scent unique to San Francisco's vintage structures. A small huddle of detectives had gathered outside the door to interrogation room 5. Mulder flipped open his badge again and was directed to enter the observation room that doubled as a cleaning closet just beyond. Inside the narrow room Mulder and Scully could see into the next room through the one-way mirror to where the tearful woman was sitting in a straight back chair opposite two officers with a tape recorder. She was nervous and jabbering incoherently. "Hees no my husband..." she was trying to say in painful English, then gave up lapsing into her native tongue. Mulder once again found himself swearing he'd find the time to acquaint himself with more than the one, so far useless, Latin language he had bothered to study. "Where the hell is that interpreter?" Detective Meyer's gravely voice could be heard moving up the hall. Presently he entered the cramped room and made his way over to the agents. "Thanks for getting here so fast," he said. "Didn't interrupt another meal, I hope...Anyway, we didn't have much trouble identifying the face in the composite once it circulated through the precincts," he paused and flipped through the stack of paperwork in his hand, pulling out a mug shot. Mulder took it from him. He held it out to Scully so they could both recognize the similar features. "Vincent Pirelli, age 42, 5'4", small eyes, small hands-- we're analyzing his palm prints--arrested three years ago in connection with a small check cashing fraud operation down on Geary. Couldn't make the crime stick however, he was released. Since then he's been doing honest work for Bay Area Rapid Transit." "What kind of work?" Mulder asked. "Uh, maintenance of some kind..." Meyer flipped more pages. "According to this, general contract work, some metal work, some electrical. General repairs it seems. We're trying to get his manager on the horn...Oh thank god!" Meyer had spotted a young man coming to the door, one of the other detectives led him into the interrogation room where he took a seat opposite the woman. They began to communicate in a lyrical flow of Italian. "She's the one who helped these guys nail down his identity," Meyer said in a low tone, stepping closer to the mirror, pointing through the glass. "Reported her husband missing early yesterday, except without a translation, no one really took her seriously at first." "How long had her husband been missing?" Scully asked. "You're gonna love this--since the day of the quake..." "Detective?" An officer peeked in catching Meyer's attention. "Anderson wants to talk to you." "I'll be right back," Meyer said, exiting the room. Mulder turned to Scully who was still eyeing the suspect's wife through the glass. The frightened thin dark-haired woman was shaking her head saying the only word she knew well in English, "No, no, no, no." "I hope she has some idea where we can find him..." With a deep rattle, the floor began to thrash violently. Scully made to reach out to steady herself and realized the mirror was not an option, instead she tipped backwards just as the lights cut out knocking herself into Mulder who in turn to made a reach for both her and the packed utility shelf next to him bringing its unsettled height crashing to the floor next to them in a raucous symphony of tumbling plastic, metal and shattering glass. The woman next door issued a scream. The floor it seemed had come unhinged and was writhing in a disjointed dance. In another breathless moment it was over. The close walls around them relaxing, but the lights that had once illuminated both the windowless observation and interview rooms stayed a stubbornly inky black. "Shit..." "Mulder, you okay?" He had released her and she could hear him raising a hand to his head. "Yeah. I just got beaned by Pine Sol--you?" "Mmm...I think I'm standing in something sticky." The small bulb light overhead hummed and hissed back to half- life casting a brownish hue across the disheveled room. Scully raised a hand to fend off the glare, realizing it wasn't necessary. "Brown-out," Mulder mumbled, rubbing the back of his head while making an effort to get to the door, pushing a rolling bucket and mop out of his way. An outside hand turned the knob and opened it for him, flooding the room with faded light from the dirty hallway windows. "Anyone hurt?" asked an officer. "You guys really need to clean in there," Mulder said, turning to make sure Scully exited the room without anymore missteps. "Goddammit! What the hell is this shit?" blared one of the inspectors. "I thought these damn aftershocks were supposed to get easier on us." "Evidently not," noted Det. Meyer who was helping a female officer coax the now terrified Pirelli woman out of the darkened room. "Take her to the lounge. Let her calm down," he said. "You get anything from her?" he asked the interpreter. "Yes I did, at least what I could understand." "Well?" "She says her husband hasn't been himself since late Tuesday evening. He apparently came home from work very late acting strangely...she says he wasn't like himself at all. As if he was a different person altogether. He was insisting he needed to check in with some guy named Applegate. According to her they don't know anyone by that name. His BART main- tenance supervisor is named Webster." "Did he tell her where he had been that night?" The younger man shook his head, "No, he didn't give her any explanation at all...Oh, she said he seemed to have trouble finding his way around the apartment, asked her where the bathroom was...very strange." "When did she notice him missing again?" asked Mulder. "About a hour or so after he arrived home he left, just wandered out. Didn't say where he was going." "Mulder..." Scully looked as if she was just becoming aware of something. "I think...I remember from the case file...the first victim, Reynolds, worked at Applegate's Body Shop." Mulder looked at Meyer, questioning. The detective flipped through his file again. He looked up in assent. "She's right." "He must have tailed his first victim from his workplace," she reasoned. Mulder was shaking his head pondering the connection for a while. "I don't think so, Scully. I don't think he was ever near the place." "Why?" asked Meyer. "The first aftershock occurred at about 6:20PM. The murder followed about thirty minutes later. That report will tell you Reynolds had gone home for the day much earlier around 4:00PM, thirty-eight minutes before the major quake itself." "How would he know about Applegate then?" asked Meyer. "This may sound a little odd, but I think he stole that information straight from Reynold's head." Meyer looked perplexed. Scully braced herself for what was to follow. "Pirelli's wife claims her husband seemed to have trouble re- membering his way around his own house, and yet he was very clear about needing to contact Applegate." Mulder looked to the interpreter. "Did she say if her husband actually called the guy or not?" The interpreter shook his head. "I'll go ask." He headed away from them toward the lounge. "Wait a minute..." Meyer paused. "Exactly what do you mean by *stole* this information from his head?" Mulder drew himself up to accentuate the fact he really did believe what he was about to explain. "It's my opinion that Pirelli possesses an ability to extract memory in the form of electrical energy from his victims, damaging parts of their central nervous system in the process--the brain and the heart --centers for memory retention." Meyer was making a valiant effort to comprehend this train of reasoning, thus far Agent Mulder had shown an uncanny ability to be right about this case, but this was beginning to gravitate beyond his comfort level of normalcy. His confounded expression must have communicated as much because Mulder responded, "I know it doesn't sound very probable, but so far the evidence is suggesting as much, at least to me," he looked at Scully, she was saving her opinion for later, he could tell. "Okay, I could be wrong, but at least look into the phone records from that evening. I suspect he made the call." Meyer regarded the taller man with a questioning faith. "We'll get right on it," he said with a shrug and stepped away. Mulder turned back to his partner and prepared for a healthy round of intellectual tennis. She was looking up at him slyly through her lashes. "Evidently your reputation did not precede you to the West Coast," she said with a patient little smile. He led her further down the hall so they would be out of earshot. "I may be mistaken, but I don't remember the part of medical school where we studied the heart's memory center," she said quietly, looking up at him. His face was set--fully determined to defend his carefully contrived theory. "Heart transplant recipients have frequently reported assimilating personality characteristics of their deceased donors--speech patterns, personal habits, sometimes even memories. It's known as cellular memory." "Mulder," Scully began in her best physician's consultation manner. "Memories are formed in the brain as a result of electrochemical signals moving through a network of billions of nerve cells. No other part of the human body has the proper hardware to function in this manner." He gave her an obstinate grunt. "All right then, think about it this way. Modern technology's developed computer neural networks that imitate the brain's ability to learn and store information for future use. What if this man harbors a unique biological ability to access and in effect download from the brain's electrical memory centers just like downloading files from a hardrive? Extracting both energy and memories in the process." Scully was standing firm in her convictions, her arms coming to cross over her chest. "I can understand someone developing a method for killing with electromagnetic energy resulting in the type of tissue damage we've found in the victims--but you can't extract memories Mulder, it's not possible." She was interrupted by someone up the hall whistling loudly to get everyone's attention. "Listen up people--we've got our suspect in sight. He was just reported accosting a doughnut delivery man near the Wharf!" ************************* (8/11) ******************** Fisherman's Wharf 4:30 PM "Mulder, it's me." "Where are you, Scully?" "I'm standing at the corner of Taylor and Jefferson watching a homeless man disguised as a bush scaring people as they walk by for spare change," she said into her cellphone with a some- what perplexed tone as a couple of startled teens started shrieking. "That's called street performance, Scully. Go give him a dollar." "I thought I was supposed to be keeping an eye out for our suspect?" "And?" "Well, I see about fifty or so strange faces walking past me every few seconds wearing badly matched T-shirts, ballcaps, and video equipment." "You're experiencing tourism. When this is over, I'll by you an ice cream and we can try to fit in." "Not likely Mulder, we don't seem to fit in anywhere." "Have you tried sneaking into an insurance sales convention?" She smiled wanely at his feeble attempt at FBI humor. "What's your position looking like?" "The same, except I get the occasional taped bloodcurdling scream coming from the House of Medieval Torture behind me. Sure you don't want to checkout the local attractions later?" "I'll pass. Sixteenth-century bondage is more to your taste, I think." "I can compromise." "Have the other officers checked in yet?" "Yeah, we're all in position now. Pirelli wasn't very successful with the doughnut man, he'll need to kill soon--keep you ears open for commotion." "I think I'll need to move a bit further from the local attraction here then." "Okay, but stay in contact with me." Scully kept the line open and worked her way further up Jefferson weaving through the early Saturday evening Fisherman's Wharf congestion--easily San Francisco's biggest attraction--infused with the smell of boiling seafood and fresh-baked sourdough bread wafting into the air. The streets of the Northern-most tip of San Francisco's peninsula were packed with an array of attractions; from Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum and the Underwaterworld Aquarium, to camera shops, fast food, ice cream, and crab cocktail stands lining the garishly cluttered street. Pausing near the overhang of a store selling scenic placemats and personalized license plates, she squinted into the human confusion flowing toward her. It was hard to focus on distinct features--the jambalaya of backpacks, hooded sweatshirts, baby strollers, bicycles, and balloon hats made it difficult to discern specific features. After several minutes, a large bus pulled up temporarily stalling the flow of people. As the coursing cleared, Scully was able to see across to the street parallel. Near a line of people she could just make out the color of gray-blue overalls. She raised the phone to her ear, calm. "I've got Pirelli in my sight. He's standing near the line for the Wax Museum on Embarcadero. I'm moving east to get a closer look." The voice of her partner was immediately in her ear. "Scully, listen to me. I'll meet you at your location. Just keep an eye on him. I'm hanging up a second to alert Det. Meyer. I'll call you right back." Mulder redialed his phone and made the call while heading back up Leavenworth to intercept. He rounded the corner and took a moment to navigate through a wave of camera-adorned Japanese businessmen pouring out of a bus. He punched his auto-dial. "Scully." "Can you still see him?" he asked. "Yes, he's moving east. I'm crossing to Embarcadero..." "Scully, stay at Jefferson until I reach you." She didn't answer. "Scully?" He looked down at his phone--the line was still open. "Scully?" The phone went dead in his ear. He punched the buttons and dialed her again. It rang...no response. *Damn...* Mulder turned and made a quick right, running two blocks up Beach before turning left at the last block to reach tourist- impacted Jefferson a few breathless minutes later. He could see the entrance to the wax museum clearly from there. She wasn't in sight. He crossed the street--and turned east, the crowd blocking his view as he pierced the swarm vainly trying to catch sight of her. He shouted her name and pushed his way up the narrow sidewalk past the tacky cablecar souvenir stands and through the steaming stench of the sidewalk crab pots--knocking into an irritated tourist or two in the process. "Scully!" He stopped at the corner of Jones and whirled around urgently trying to guess her last move. Then he caught sight of a swath of red hair on the sidewalk just across the street from him half hidden under the shadow of a chowder stand. "Hey!" He yelled, as he started through the incessant traffic congestion to reach her. "Somebody help her!" Until his shout, no one had bothered to recognize her fallen form for what it was, moving unquestioning past her, carrying packages and cameras. *Bystander apathy*. The psychologist in him noted. As soon as he got to her he knew the once indifferent throng would suddenly all stop to hover around with keen interest. They were beginning to hover already. He ran up to her, pushing people aside and knelt, taking her up carefully and turning her over. Her eyes were rolled back and nearly closed. He felt her neck, her pulse was strong. Her eyes closed as he moved her and she gave a faint moan. "Scully?" he called to her, brushing the hair from her cheek. "Scully, can you hear me?" Her lids fluttered and with a gasp she came back to herself, her arms winging out to steady herself. She blinked up at him as he steadied her across his knees, holding her against his arm. "Mulder? What?" she looked past him squinting at the strange faces circling them. Realizing that she appeared to be in close proximity to the ground. "Did I fall?" Her partner was clearly out of breath with beads of sweat sprinkling his forehead. "Mulder? Where are we? Why am I on the sidewalk?" "What's the last thing you remember, Scully?" he asked with obvious concern and dread. She shook her head. She felt funny. Her fingers and legs were tingling. She struggled to a sitting position and touched her forehead. She felt very strange indeed. "I remember...sea lions...I was watching the sea lions..." His eyes told her that was the wrong answer. She thought it over... sea lions. Why did she say sea lions? The memory was leaving her and she felt that fuzzy vision replaced with one that seemed a lot more familiar. "We were...we were talking to Det. Meyer--they'd spotted the suspect near the Wharf..." His mouth tightened, "That was over an hour ago..." "Hmmm?" "That bastard got to you Scully. He got into your head, stole an hour from you. He could have taken a lot more." "But how--Mulder, I don't even remember..." her feeble attempt at creating a scientific defense at this moment was ridiculous even to her. Her memory was missing and she could feel it. Instead she pushed away from him and got to her feet. "Careful..." he began, straightening to steady her. "I'm fine, Mulder." A tense flash of hazel told her that line was all but useless. A cellphone rang. It was hers, lying just under the chowder table. Mulder bent and picked it up, answering it. "Hello?" Silence for a second or two and then it hit with a piercing electronic whine. He winced and pulled the phone away from his ear. The phone shrieked and chattered for a few seconds more and then disconnected. Dial tone. "It must have hit the ground..." she began to say...but Mulder was staring at her, shaking his head with a very serious expression. "He's got your number," he said flatly. ******************** Davies Medical Center 10:00 PM Scully sat obediently on the edge of a gurney in the Davies Medical Center emergency room. Through the window she could see Mulder pacing the hallway like a leopard. His tag team twin had most certainly arrived. They'd argued all the way over here from the Wharf, him insisting her condition was a hell of a lot more serious than she could believe it was. She sighed, trying to calm herself. This had to stop. She wasn't sick anymore, he had to believe that--to trust her to not fall to pieces on him. A spill to the pavement could easily explain her bit of missing short term memory. From what he told her, she didn't miss much. Pirelli had vanished from the area and surprisingly enough no bodies had been found. The doughnut man reported feeling a little hazy, not much else. He could clearly remember seeing Pirelli approach him from behind, asking him for directions, then taking him by the neck started to push them back into an ally. He kneed the smaller, huskier man in the stomach and ran off to find a nearby police officer. The nurse was speaking to her, telling her what she already knew--take it easy, get some rest, call if she felt nauseated... She was fine, dammit. And she wanted to get out of there, they had wasted enough time on her. The nurse told her she could go and gathering herself with a deep breath, Scully slid off the bed, grabbed her coat and headed for the door into the lion pit. Mulder stopped his pacing and stood staring at her as she walked toward him, his jaw set. "We're switching hotels," he said without room for debate. "Mulder, don't be ridiculous..." she felt herself on the thin edge of patience. "I'm tired, I'm hungry. I'm going back to the hotel, ordering in and going straight to bed." She turned away from him and made a brisk getaway for the door. He followed close behind her, his hand issuing a not-so-restrained pressure on the small of her back as he pushed the door open for her. He somehow managed to reign himself until they reached the car, then he let loose. "Dammit Scully, why won't you trust me on this?" he said petulantly, his eyes flashing a heated green. "Mulder, I'm through with this." "Don't you realize what this guy is capable of? Don't you see what he's after?" "I think you're overreacting." "He took your memory from you. He knows...god knows what about you. He has your cellphone number, maybe even your room number..." "How? How does he have these things? You can't just take thoughts from people, Mulder!" "Okay, then explain something to me. Why did you say you remembered sea lions when you first came to?" *Sea lions...yes, that was strange...* Mulder bent closer to her, touching her shoulder to see if he was possibly beginning to get through. Scully's shoulders gave a bit. "I don't know..." she answered without much conviction. "You remembered sea lions because you were witnessing another person's memory," he said carefully, his voice suddenly dropping to almost a whisper, catching her large blue eyes and holding them in his gaze. "A random orphaned memory from one of his victims, suddenly infused in you like a dying battery charge." "But how..." "Have you asked yourself Scully, why out of all the people on the Wharf today he chose to go for you? When I found you, you were blocks from your last location. I told you to stay and wait for me." "Maybe I decided to pursue him alone." "Maybe, or maybe he called you to him." She stared back at him incredulously. "Every crime scene has one thing in common...a manipulated electronic device." She dropped her head slightly, her thoughts turning inward. Yes, she was beginning to understand. "That damned chip in your neck. It was described once as a micro processing unit for receiving and storing electrical impulses along the spinal column...for storing memories." She bit her upper lip and looked up at him again. He pulled back releasing his breath, feeling the tension across his shoulders begin to relax. She believed him now. "OK Mulder," she said with quiet resolution. "What do we need to do to stop him?" ******************** (9/11) ******************** North Beach Hotel SUN: 4:45 AM The room was cold. The San Francisco fog had invaded with a vengeance in the pre-dawn hours and poured like thick white paint over the city where it hung churning slowly in the rolling air. Scully woke suddenly. Her left arm was chilled and damp where it had escaped the wrap of the comforter in which she had cocooned herself in an effort to keep out the fog. Sleepily, she mused she should make an effort to get up and turn up the wall heater which had now fallen silent, cracking and banging as it cooled. She began to slip back into her dreams when a shiver caught her shoulders and she decided the poorly performing heater did indeed need her encouragement. She sat up slowly and blinked, trying to build up the muster to leave the meager warmth of the bed. Mulder wasn't fairing much better. He had left the sanctity of his own room and bed for the less-than-ideal side chair cushioned into the corner of her room near the window. He'd pulled the blanket and bed cover from his room and wrapped himself in it as best he could against the draught of the tall bay window. He was asleep, his weapon drawn across his lap, his fingers loosely curled around the grip. Scully moved carefully and drew her covers quietly around her as she pushed herself into a sitting position. She watched him, studying the outline of his face enclosed in sleep. He had been insistent that evening that she allow him to keep close to her, to keep guard for their suspect should he follow her here to her room. He had intended to remain awake she was certain and although the deep rise and fall of his chest proved otherwise, she was also equally certain the slightest sound from her or the street below would instantly rouse him to full alert. Like a spider on its web--still, but ready to strike without warning. But at this moment she didn't wish to disturb those delicate threads just yet. She had been furious with him last night. A type of fury only he seemed to have the ability to instill within her. He had an unsettling way of getting under her skin, goading her out from her easy professional detachment into a storm of insurgent emotions barely held in check. Their unique brand of intellectual warfare could exhaust her at times. Yet she relished every battle, marching into the skirmish freely with weapons drawn. It was as enthralling as it was intense and afterwards when he would give her that look that meant *it's over now, I'm finished*--she would be diffused, disarmed, dropping all her defenses with the will of his glance. Scully pulled the comforter tighter. The realization hit her hard sometimes when she wasn't expecting it--the sway he held over her--how he could tug and pull at her like no other man she had ever known. Mostly she tried to not think about its significance and just focused on the matters at hand, comforted by the knowledge that for every thread he had strung within her there was an equal binding tie within him. Of that she was certain, and at the same time that knowledge terrified her. Terrified her to a point that it had paled even the gripping fear of her own death not so very long ago as he had come to her side in the final days before her miraculous recovery. The cancer eating away at her body was wrecking an even greater damage in him. She could see it. And she hated herself for adding to the carnage that his ill-fated life had already carved into him. What would he have done for her if she had failed to survive? Would he have continued the fight in her memory, or would he have given into his growing despair and executed an equal revenge on his enemies with deadly force, destroying his own life in the process. This was the nature of the terror for her. To know with absolute clarity that the flawed and cracked soul of this man was held together by such a delicate and impermanent thing as her flesh. Scully moved again, slowly, silently and eased herself to the side of the bed wrapping the comforter around her and cautiously slipped down onto her feet. And even more soundlessly she stepped tentatively closer to his chair. She smiled slightly as she regarded him, his face half cast in shadow. He didn't move, but she could see his eyes slipping in tiny movements behind their lids--dreaming. The slight knit of his temple betraying the nature of his dream. What did he dream about now? she wondered. Was it the lies and betrayals, or the guilt and self-deprivation he imposed upon himself as a daily penance for all their losses and tragedies? *If I can save you Mulder, let me...* If only he could just let it go. If she could by some means repair the cracks and seams and help him to rebuild into something that could endure anything, even losing her. This is what she wished for him. What she prayed for. Why she knew she could never leave him, no matter what the cost to her. Scully felt a tightness filling her throat and moistening her eyes. In that instant, she was overcome with an undeniable need to gather him up into her arms and hold him tightly to her, her fingers in his hair, soothing him with tiny whispered promises, pulling his face to hers and delicately kissing away his demons with feather touches to his lips, his eyes, his nose... But, these were things she could not do. Would not allow herself to do. For fear beyond a doubt that in this she would completely undo him, unravel him, and unloose his drowning soul and in its surging wake be washed away completely. Instead she said his name. He was instantly awake, tousling his coverings to the floor. His grip coming down hard on his weapon. "Mulder, it's okay." she said softly touching his shoulder as he blinked up at her, his mouth half open in question. "It's early, but I'm going to get up now." He looked at her obstinately. "What time is it?" he asked, his eyes scanning the room, the tone of his voice already indicating his irritation with himself for falling asleep. "It's five or so. Look--I want you to go back to your room and really get some sleep. We've got until 9:30 before we're scheduled to meet with Det. Meyer." "Scully..." he began... "No Mulder. It's my turn to be insistent." And with a gentle shove she convinced him to listen to her. ************************* Market St. BART Station 11:45 AM "You're not hoping to find another mutant down here are you?" "Don't know...but I think it's your turn to catch him." Dana Scully smiled mildly at his nostalgic answer as they rode the escalator down from street level to the underground Market St. station. She was not having a good day. Too little sleep and an aggravating dull headache at the base of her head were clouding her normally active mind into a puddle of semi-alert mush. She blinked, trying to clear her head. Mulder, however, had emerged that morning infuriatingly refreshed, thrilled with the prospect of descending three floors down into the bowels of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. They had received a call earlier that day from Webster, Pirelli's supervisor. The SFPD had finally gotten in touch with him over the weekend. It seemed he had sent Pirelli home about 5PM the day of the quake. He had appeared to be acting "spacy." Webster thought he might have gotten too close to the high-voltage third rail on the track they were repairing during a quake-related power surge. He hadn't reported to work since. Webster and four other men in familiar gray-blue overalls were waiting for them as they stepped off the escalator and walked across the orange tiled floor. To either side of the platform ran two tunnels plunging into darkness under the streets of San Francisco. A rushing sound accompanied by a blast of stale air coursed through one of the tunnels. Announcing itself with a tonal beep, the angular snake-like strip of the commuter train emerged from its lair and whooshed to a stop on the right hand side, spilling and collecting humans through its sliding automatic doors. Mulder made their introductions to Webster. "We're waiting for one more," the tall bony man said, shaking Mulder's hand. "Detective Meyer?" "No, some guy from the seismology center up north--a Nilsen, I think." Mulder looked surprised. "A seismologist? Why?" "Dunno, he called me. Said they'd been analyzing some data from the last aftershock. Wanted to come by and have a look at the tunnel. I figured I'd save time and scheduled you both together." "Oddly enough, we've already met him." Webster looked confused and then turned his gaze up toward the entrance. Mulder turned in time to see a wide-eyed Nilsen, yellow hair unbound, running down the escalator. He sped over to the collection of people waiting for him like a tour group. "Sorry I'm late...parking, you know," he said out of breath. His eyes were bright. He nodded a quick greeting to the agents before turning back to Webster, "Can we get into the Daily City tunnel today?" "That's where we're headed," the thin man replied. "Hope you brought your flashlights." Pausing to don flaming orange hardhats at the equipment shed, Webster escorted the group into a security passage and down three long flights of stairs to an emergency exit door which opened up into the Daily City line--closed for service and repair ever since the quake. The air was heavy and stale, smelling of urine, rat droppings, and mold. They shuffled along the elevated narrow concrete pedestrian walkway by flashlight, the tiny blue and red tunnel lights serving more for location markers than illumination. Single-file, they made their way--Nilsen between Mulder and Scully filling then in on the latest seismographic readings measured by the Point Reyes Lab. "We didn't know at first what to think," he explained excitedly. "We thought we were picking up some kind of magnetic interference, skewing the data. But that doozy of an aftershock we all felt last night rang it all in. We weren't seeing anomalies after all--we were in fact observing fresh quake readings right here in downtown San Francisco." "You're saying we're sitting on top of the epicenter?" Mulder asked. "Better than that. We're walking right on top of what appears to be a newly formed fault, jarred loose by the other quakes. It didn't really give a good shove on its own until last night's 4.2." "Do you know the exact location of the fault?" asked Scully. "Not yet. I'm hoping I can detect some evidence at the sight of the power surge these guys said they had last Tuesday during the major quake. It could have started shifting as early as then..." "Holy crap! Would you look at that?" They suddenly came to a dead stop. "Jesus almighty. How the hell are we gonna repair that?" They stood still for a moment, Mulder raised his flashlight over his head, trying to get a peek. "Hold up everyone. Let's not move until we get a light on this," ordered Webster from up ahead. Two of his men had shouldered a flood light with them and carefully slipping through the handrail, lowered down the light. In a moment or two the set-up was complete. The men flipped on the battery pack. >From behind him, Mulder could hear Scully's gasp. "Oh my god..." What was left of the previous week's construction equipment sat teetering on the edge of a gaping jagged eruptive crack carved from the near wall in a jumble of twisted metal and rocky debris expanding into a black zig-zagging hole that had opened in the ground swallowing the southbound line and ending as far as they could see at wider gash ripped into the far tunnel wall like a narrow cavern. "Looks like someone's been doing a little re-routing." Mulder commented as he followed the workmen down, bending under the handrail, and slipping down off the four- foot ledge to the ground below. Nilsen volleyed right behind picking his way carefully toward the chasm. Mulder stopped a moment turning to his partner. "Coming down, Scully?" She looked undecided. Exploring the raw edge of a giant gash in the earth wasn't very high on her list. He held a hand up to her, beckoning. "Come on. I'll catch you." She slipped down to her seat and swung her legs over the edge. Taking the rail in both hands, she ducked her head under it, and pushed off the edge into his arms. He caught her at the waist and deposited her onto her feet with a thud. "You putting on weight, Scully?" She snorted at him, tugging her coat back into place. "Keep it up Mulder, and you're going in the hole." Panning the disrupted tracks carefully with their flashlights, they came up and stood with the others as close as they dared to the edge of the rift. Nilsen was picking his way along its length through the upheavaled black rock, shining his borrowed flashlight beam at various points gleefully. Mulder made his way up to Webster who was standing near the leading edge, shaking his head. "When was the last time your men were in this area?" "Not since Friday," the man answered, still stunned. "I take it, it didn't look this bad last week." "Sure as hell didn't, there was ground here." "Was this the location Pirelli was working on when the big quake hit?" "More or less. He seemed okay, just a little stunned. Later we found readings of a power surge hitting this track, which was strange considering the breakers were all shut off. I got worried about him then. Told him to take the day off--go get checked out." "You're still uncertain of the source of the surge?" The tall man shrugged, "It could have been anything--an arc from a neighboring line...who knows. I can show you the computer log." "But the high-voltage third rail that registered this surge is electromagnetic, correct." "Yeah, pulls the train forward via a magnetic field." Mulder was suddenly hit with a flash of light to the face. "Agent Mulder, you're gonna want to see this!" It was Nilsen. He was laying prone, as close to the far edge as possible near the widest point in the span at the far tunnel wall. He lowered his light, aiming his beam back down into the gash, peeping his head over the edge. Mulder waited a few seconds for his eyes to adjust and stepped carefully over the remaining BART tracks to just a few feet behind him. "Down here," Nilsen urged Mulder to slip down next to him. He eased down onto his stomach and closing his coat against the filthy debris, pressed toward the edge until he could just glance over. Nilsen's beam was descending an obscenely long drop into the chasm. In fact, the fairly decently bright beam failed at a point at least 500 feet down where the expanse continued unhindered in a layer cake of black and brown dirt sediments, cracked and ripped apart by massive forces. Mulder reached and picked up a tiny stone, tossing it over the edge. It was several long seconds before it tinked against solid stone. "Cool..." was Nilsen's comment. "What are we seeing here?" Mulder asked quietly. Nilsen answered him in an equally hushed voice. "This fault, according to our readings is somewhat of an exception to the types of fractures we normally find along the San Andreas..." "Mulder, what the hell are you doing?" Both men turned and slunk back from the edge at her disapproving call--coming to their feet and stepping back to a safer distance. "You're going to get a closer look than you think," she argued, slightly out of breath, brushing the dirt from her partner's coat. "Abnormal in what way?" Mulder continued, ignoring her stern look. "This fault is what we call a Vertical Strike Slip. Its movement is primarily upwards, rather than horizontal, resulting in an unusually deep fracture. Most faults in this area reach a depth of 10 miles or so. This one however, is currently estimated at at least twice that. If the data checks out, one of the deepest faults on record." Mulder turned to face his partner in awe. "Voices from the earth, Scully." ********************************** 3:00 PM Mulder stood just inside the door to the BART maintenance office where he was going over computerized track routing and signal records with Webster. Looking out onto the orange tile platform he caught sight of Scully settling back against a support column. Her arms were folded across her waist, her head held a little low, hugging herself for either warmth or comfort, he wasn't sure which. In the dank glow of the florescent lights she looked a few tones paler than her average porcelain color. He excused himself from Webster for a minute and made his way toward her. "Scully, you okay?" "What...?" she asked, lifting her eyes. He touched her arm. "You look tired." She rolled her eyes up at him, "I am tired Mulder, I didn't sleep well last night--it was a little crowded in my room." He flinched slightly at her remark. He knew she didn't appreciate the intrusion, but he couldn't allow last night to go any other way, she was too important to risk. But still he knew her tight remark wasn't just a result of poor rest. Her body had made remarkable progress in repairing itself, but a little touch of her resilience had yet to spring back into full bloom. Although he'd never say it aloud, he could see she was not all back together again--a little too thin, just a little bit fragile. As much as he dreaded to admit it, he was wearing her down--running her all over this city. It was just too soon to expect everything from her. "Don't look at me like that Mulder. I'm fine," she closed her eyes then and smiled a little. "If that's the case, then I'll have to insist you go wait for me in the car." He rummaged in his pocket for the keys and handed them to her. "Just don't play the radio too loud okay?" he quipped with a small grin. She looked at the keys a moment and opened her mouth as if she wanted to protest, but her wavering form was simply too exhausted to put up a front. She sighed and took them from him, letting herself lean slightly toward him, brushing her shoulder against his arm briefly in appreciation before walking carefully away. He watched her go. Give her time. She's going to be okay, he thought. She was back with him. It was going to be okay. ************************* (10/11) ************************* San Francisco Hall of Justice 8:30 PM The task force team meeting was going fairly well. They had assembled around 7PM to go over the finer points of the case and plan a tactical strategy. Mulder sat in a cold plastic scoop backed chair behind a thin folding table like the others --inspectors and officers of the SFPD--facing the evidence board and listening to Detective Meyer's assessments, bringing everyone up to date. He was explaining the connection between Pirelli's behavior and the electrical damage observed in the bodies and at the crime scenes in a fairly rational manner--a slightly edited version of Mulder's perceived "wild" theory of human electromagnetism and communion with the earth's core. Mulder really didn't mind that much, as long as they were together on certain end points: Namely, that the killer possessed some kind of method for drawing and releasing electromagnetic energy, and the fact he had a spotless record for making his move within 40 minutes or so of each quake. He wasn't always successful, but he did at least make the attempt. As far as they knew, there had been no more murders or attacks attributed to him since Scully. "And how is your partner?" Mulder looked up from his folded hands. "She's fine. She took a fall, experienced some confusion, but she's okay. She's downstairs speaking with the coroner right now, actually." He wondered if they had found something new --she should have joined them by now. He fingered his phone, but realized vainly that the morgue was in the basement. "We've also discovered," continued Meyer, "that the killer collects information from his victims and seems to take on some personality quirks. These quirks may be real or perceived, but for certain, we do know he was able to obtain secret access codes for Embarcadero and also according to phone records, was able to place a call from his home to an unlisted number of the employer of one of his victims." "Agent Mulder can you share with the rest of us the observations you made to me earlier on the progression of the attacks?" Mulder swiveled to face the assemblage. "Pirelli's wearing down. His recent attacks have fortunately been unsuccessful. His last two targets, of which I feel my partner was one, resulted in minimal memory loss. He has not struck again today which leads me to suspect he harbors the impulse to kill only within a certain time-frame of each quake. If he is not successful during that period, he lapses back into a passive state until he feels compelled to act again. We will most likely see him begin to select easier targets. The elderly, or young..." His statement was interrupted by a rattling sound hitting the windows and the men and women in the room reached to steady their coffee mugs. It was a relatively light one this time and gratefully over quickly. "I think that's our signal to get moving," said Meyer gravely and the meeting began to break up. Mulder stretched his back and looked at his watch, 8:45 PM. He was getting hungry. Time to slip out of here, collect Scully, and grab a late dinner. He stood and quickly snuck out ahead of the officers and made his way over to reception. "Can you ring the morgue please?" The clerk punched the number and held the desk receiver to him. "Hello, yes. Can I speak with Agent Scully please?" A pause. "Agent Dana Scully. She was meeting with the coroner." "Can I speak to the coroner then?" Another pause, longer. "This is Agent Mulder, I'm looking for Agent Scully...is she still down there?" "She left? When?" Mulder twisted his arm to look at his watch again. She had left the morgue almost an hour ago. Strange. He handed the receiver back to the clerk. Maybe she was working on a tangent. "Are there any other forensic departments open at this hour?" "No sir, everyone's pretty much checked out for the evening." He left the desk and reached for his cellphone—dialing. It rang several times. No answer. Mulder told himself not to worry as he hurried down the flat cold hallway back toward the meeting hall. No big deal, she wouldn't appreciate him thundering around checking up on her. He tried the lounge. The door was locked and the lights were off. *She was looking pale...* Mulder made an even sweep of the main and second floors. It didn't take long as most of the building was shut tight and locked. *Come on, Scully. Where are you?* Mulder entered the front lobby and waved to get the attention of the desk clerk engaged in a phone call. The lobby was nearly deserted. He clerk held his hand over the phone. "If you can wait a minute..." "I can't wait a minute," he felt his patience beginning to give a little. "I need to know if you saw a petite red-haired woman come through here over the last hour or so..." The clerk was still listening to his call..."I'm sorry can you repeat that...?" Mulder brought a frustrated hand down on the cradle, ending the call abruptly. "Hey!" "Listen to me," his voice was slow and clear. "I'm looking for my partner, Agent Dana Scully. She stands about *this* high, brilliant red hair, lavender suit..." "Agent Mulder, something wrong?" It was Det. Meyer. Mulder turned away from the flustered clerk--his eyes fading into a worried gray. "Scully...she left the morgue over an hour ago." "She what?" "She's gone," he said simply. Meyer knitted his brows still confused. "You mean she left?" Mulder was suddenly struck by a thought. He padded his coat pocket. Relief began to flood through him, "I gave her the keys earlier--she drove us here..." *Maybe she's just waiting in the car.* Meyer caught his meaning and the two men hurried for the parking garage. *She was tired, why did you drag her back out here...* Because sending her back to the hotel alone was not an option. As they entered the first floor of the garage Mulder's worst fears were realized as he scanned the few remaining cars for the deep maroon of their sedan. He didn't see it and he was pretty damned sure they had parked along the South wall-- occupied now by only an old forgotten pick-up. "Are you sure you parked here?" Meyer asked, out of breath. Mulder nodded gravely. "Would she have gone back to your hotel?" "Not without telling me. She wouldn't do that." *She was wearing down, just like Pirelli, just like that bastard... Why the hell didn't you see that?* His thoughts must have been reading clearly on his face because the older man gave him a questioning frown. "You think it's Pirelli? How...how the hell could Pirelli have possibly found her here?" "I have very good reason to believe he had means of tracking her." Out of frustration, he hit is auto-dial for her cellular again. It rang five, six, times. Mulder was pacing now, staring at the concrete ceiling feeling the pulse rising in his chest. He pulled the phone from his ear with a rough sigh and was about to beep off when the phone picked up and issued an all too familiar shattering screech. ************************* SFPD Special Teams Garage 9:13 PM Mulder sat in the back of an unmarked SFPD surveillance van staring down at the softly chattering cell phone held gingerly in his palm. Silently he urged it on, to continue its rattling wail--the last tenuous connection he had, the only hope they had of locating her with any accuracy or speed. *don't hang up...just don't hang up...* "I'll show you what we've got here..." His internal mantra was interrupted by the SFPD electrical technician who sat behind the equipment desk finishing the final start-up of the CellScope 2000 cellular tracking unit. Carefully shifting the phone to his right hand, Mulder released a deep breath and leaned in to view the monitors. He didn't know what terrified him more--finding her dead or finding her gone, the slate of the past five years wiped clean from her mind. "This is the very latest in cellular monitoring technology," the technician said, pointing to the custom CPU and duel monitor system. "We've got an antenna on the hood of the van that feeds into the CellScope. The computer basically works as a radio receiver, honing in on cell calls like a radio tuning to a station. The signal is then analyzed by the directional navigator which gives us a display indicating direction of the call and distance," he said, pointing to a multicolored digital readout on the screen. "Green for left, red for right, and blue for straight ahead." "Now the hard part's over...we know the cellphone number to scan for," he said, punching the keyboard. The system readout the number and the speakers began to blip through cell calls as the scanner searched like a dial on a radio for the number. It found the characteristic shriek very quickly. The technician raised his brows eyeing the readout—"We've got it and it looks like it's not too far away...let's try south on Mason," he called to the driver and the van began to roll forward. Mulder glanced down at his watch again. Time was passing at an alarming speed—already 28 minutes since the aftershock. He ran a hand through his hair. "If she's near the other end of that line--we'll find her," offered Det. Meyer who occupied the seat opposite. "We've run down hundreds of drug dealers, foreign call racketeers, hackers, you name it with this thing. I know...this means a lot to you." Mulder gave him a grave nod. *You have no idea...* The van pulled from the station garage and started down Mason. After five or six blocks the signal began to fade and they stopped and doubled back a block or two before picking up an indication to turn left. They continued this zig-zag chase for several minutes, pulling forward, then doubling back and turning, or sometimes just cruising straight ahead to keep moving closer to the call. While they waited at a light, the technician pulled out a small device from a black case under the desk. He held it out to Mulder. "What's this?" "It's a pocket model of the CellScope. The wall unit is only accurate for about a two block radius. Once we pin-point the right area, you'll need to hop out and finish the search with this." He flipped the power on and punched in a series of keys on the surface pad before passing it to him. "Here on the top are your LED display lights. They indicate direction, same as the main unit, except here you follow the panning lights and this readout just below gives distance in meters." The van lurched ahead again and made a right. "We're getting close..." noted the technician turning back to the monitors. "Very close, make a left on Bay." They drove forward slowly watching any indication of signal fade, lest they drive right past it. "Keep forward..." the van drove up Bay St. to where it narrowed to a one-way dead end in front of the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts. The tech pulled on his lower lip, thinking, his eyes darting back and forth across the screen. "Okay, okay," he said aiming his pointer finger at the screen. "I think you'd better take to the street now. We're very close and you'll save time on foot." ********************** (11/11) ************************* 9:25 PM The fog hung low and thick over the Palace of Fine Arts where it had poured in past the Golden Gate Bridge just three miles offshore. Visibility was slight, not more than a dozen yards or so in any direction. The Palace of Fine Arts covered three acres of what was once the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Its architect had envisioned a Romanesque ruin, mutilated and overgrown with time. A combined Greek and roman construction, its four-story-high rust-toned concrete Corinthian colonnade and massive rotunda all reflected in the waters of a shallow lagoon running the length of the complex. Tonight the column capitals and stone lachrymose figures stood solid and cold swathed in white air, the rotunda's massive patina dome just visible above the fog bank, the waters of the lagoon dull and flat in the stiff air. The men gathered at the curbside and in coordination with five other patrolcars, split up to cover the area. Mulder, Meyer, and two patrolmen entered the complex from the grassy hillside at the southern-most end of the park, following the LED indicator lights into the wide span of trees and foliage that rimmed the lagoon. Mulder held the pocket scope in his hand and lead the party forward into the moist air. The signal was strong, not more than 450 meters from the source which appeared to be emanating from the densest patch of greenery just east of the edge of the lagoon. His cell phone in his trench inside pocket still scrambled and chirped, urging them forward. Elsewhere there was very little sound. It was as if they were surrounded by packing foam, insulating and isolating. Their footfalls were dull and fell where they stepped in the damp grass failing to travel any distance. Although it kept them quiet, it also kept anyone else in the park seethed in silence as well. "Hold up, I think we're turning." Mulder panned the scanner back and forth through the air in front of him trying to get a fix on the direction. Ahead of them was a grove of plum trees surrounded by a low circular hedge. The LED readout indicated the general location of the shrubbery. Meyer and Mulder exchanged a look and the four of them spilt into teams of two each taking the opposite direction around the grove. Mulder and a patrolman took the lagoon side and headed around the solid line of manicured bushes, vainly peering into the swirling air for a shadow of movement within the grove. The tree leaves hung like wet black rags from the heavy tangle of branches. They cleared one quarter of the circumference before the scanner began to rotate to the right. Mulder shifted the scanner to his left hand and pulled his gun, the patrolman followed suit. "It's in the center," he whispered and catching the man's eyes, mouthed to go on three,...one...two... On three they crashed through the hedge and divided into the grove aiming weapons behind tree trunks, through branches and into dark corners zeroing in on what soon proved to be a very dark, very empty grove. *Damn...* Mulder looked back to the scanner. It read five meters to the left. Mulder pocketed it and pulled his flashlight. Panning left he illuminated the crumpled folds of a dark coat lying flat in the undergrowth beneath the plums. "Hey, you find anything?" It was Meyer and the other men pushing and cracking their way into the ring. Mulder bent down and lifted the lapel of Scully's empty black coat and pulled her cellphone from the inside pocket. "Hers?" asked Meyer. Mulder scrubbed his chin with the back of his hand, and looked up at him, his eyes deepening to a dark cold gray. ************************* They pulled back out of the grove and onto the rolling grass slope. Mulder slipped the dead phone into his pocket. "We'll need to split up--cover the complex from all sides." Meyer and the two patrolmen took forward, left, and back. Mulder went right...the direction he felt drawn to take. Weapon in hand, he headed away from the others down toward the cement lagoon path, a low green park bench sprang into his flashlight beam just in time for him to avoid catching a leg on it. He flicked the flashlight off. It was only contributing to the opacity of the fog blanket. He blinked once or twice to let his vision readjust. Now in the darkness, he could see the muffled drape of trees and the thin cold line of the water just slightly illuminated by the half moon. There was a dulled rushing sound of the lagoon fountain as he drew closer and the lazy cluck of sleepy ducks drifting in the algae-scented water. He reached the cement and began to walk quickly and silently to the north around the lagoon. *..I just got her back...* The inside of his mind was dividing itself into two different tracks. The one more dominant controlled the grip on his gun, the stealth of his steps, the scan of his eyes and sensitivity of his hearing--checking and rechecking input, gathering any and all external stimulus--the movement of the air, the muffled echoes in the fog, a rustle in the bushes, and the shifting wafts of miniature shadows gray against white. While quite against his will, a second seeping whisper lapped at his concentration like deep blue flame, feeding and fueling his primary focus, snapping each nerve to full alert. It spoke to him in little verses of consciousness...remembrances, beliefs, truths that kept themselves buried below his frame of recognition waiting to slowly bleed forth whenever the fear cut into him. *...nature is woefully indifferent to whether we live or die...* He believed it was true, or else how could anything with a flicker of sentience pull her away from him again--to give and to take so carelessly. To test him like this over and over in a myriad of trials--some quick and hard, some slow and terrible. He kept his pace, strong and even--his eyes vigilantly darting back and forth across the path and back to the water, trying to catch the finest variation in the natural background. *...something we have no personal choice in...* What sick fuck could devise a disease so insidious that he would be forced to watch her shrink before his eyes growing smaller everyday, her brightness dimmed and fading into the crumpled sheets of a hospital bed. Driving him to fight like hell against the hourglass to gather all the answers--to search, to run, to kill. But was it this same hand that devised a way to save her, to bring her back changed but new and warm with renewed spirit so bright it sometimes blinded him? And then just as soon as the sweet respite served to build him up again, to let the wounds just knit, it cut her away again to lay forth a new task, a new tangled knot--leaving him to pray to whoever would listen that he could unravel the cords in time to catch her. *...what happens when I run out of time...* His pace had briskly drawn him up alongside the lagoon's north island--dark and choked with foliage. The path curved to the left around it and began to turn towards the north end of the hulking stone colonnade. Just as he passed the edge of the island, his hearing detected the ever so muffled sound of a voice. A single syllable straight ahead just across the water, smoothed and buffed by fog, lighter than air--a note he knew, could hone in on clearly in a room choked with voices without question. *...she's here...she's close...* He picked up into a light run and cleared the island, following the snaking path to the west flanked by Monterey cypress. He passed the chainlink fence that bordered the parking lot and came to rest up against the first of a cluster of six foot thick columns that held up the towering semi-circular Grecian colonnade. Mulder pinned his back to the cold wet stone and holding his weapon tight against him, lunged left drawing his arms out straight targeting the barrel into the complex from left to right, his aim coming to rest on nothing. His ears had betrayed him. The dislocation of the sodden air, disrupting the path of her single note. His breath was issuing from his lips in billowing pants. Quick and tight, the moisture from his lungs collecting on his brow and layering his hair flat against his forehead. He glanced at his watch again--49 minutes. His pulse was hammering in his chest faster than he'd like it to be. *...I need more time...* His secondary consciousness was falling back on the simplest of tactics--a plea. A plea to whoever controlled this twisted and contrived world to at least grant him some space to maneuver through this. How many errors was he allowed? How many missteps? Who thought to half blindfold him in this thick blank air and leave him to fumble with echoes and false clues? It wasn't fair, it wasn't right. *...you need to give me more time...* He stepped into the open air path running between the line of columns on the left and the curved stone walls of the museum building to the right. High above, weeping ladies bent in sorrow lay their weary heads on the column capitals casting melancholy moonlit shadows across his path. He was passing them by, approaching the mammoth rotunda, were it stood cold and indifferent, dwarfing the colonnade--nearly double its height in size. Mulder moved forward onto the grass, his insignificant silhouette held in blank regard by the Greek maidens that circled the rectangular bases of the colonnade --holding together a wreath of laurel arm to arm forever frozen in stone relief. He heard a noise. Scattered at first, but now growing stronger as he jogged silently forward trying to clear the last stone base and slip through the central columns into one of the six arched entrances of the rotunda. It was the shuffling of shoes on gravel on cement rising into the air amplified and bouncing in echo off the dome's interior. Mulder cut over the dewy grass to the nearest arch flanked by two 20 foot Grecian urns set upon rectangular base walls carved with visages of Greek soldiers strained in battle. He lay back flat against the nearest entrance wall and eased himself toward the edge, following the eyes of the soldiers. Carefully without sound or breath he peered around the edge. He saw them. In the pale curtain of moonlight that draped itself from the apex of the arch to the center of the floor. Pirelli had her in his grasp. He was holding her by the shoulders up against the corner of a wall at the inside edge of the archway just across from him. Mulder stilled his mind entirely, and aiming his weapon carefully for Pirelli's head, crept silently toward them from behind. Scully's eyes were open staring straight ahead at the stocky man, her lips slightly parted. She seemed loose in his powerful hands, as if she would fall if he didn't hold her upright. Mulder forced his breath to stay even and slow as he circled to the right for a clean shot. He was almost in position when Pirelli released his hold of her arms and brought his hands down in a tight grip around her throat. "Let her go!" Mulder's cavernous shout didn't make the man even flinch. Mulder stepped closer, both hands gripping his gun, steadying his aim, raising it to Pirelli's right temple--another few feet and he'd have the shot. There was a sound like popping static and the air around the man and his captive began to hiss with the acrid smell of ozone. Scully's eyes began to roll heavenward. "Let her go, or I'll fucking shoot you!" Her head snapped back violently and Mulder fired...once...twice into the right side of Pirelli's head blowing a red spattered mixture of flesh and gray matter across the gothic stone relief. The stocky man slumped forward knocking Scully to the ground under him. In a second Mulder was on him pulling him off of her and turning him over, throwing him flat on his back to the ground, his hands on his neck. And then it began. As the blood coursed from the gaping wound in Pirelli's head, Mulder could feel an uneasy sensation beginning in his fingers where they were gripped to the man's flesh. The sensation grew and spread rapidly, intensifying, radiating up his arms and across his chest, down his back and legs. It froze him to the spot unable to move and then it came...suddenly... oh god...it was incredible...it was... ...images...thoughts...sensations... ...it was... ...what that man had just seconds ago stolen escaping through him, into him, alighting within his very nerves, cells, blood... ...it was her... What she saw, what she felt...scattered events over the last few days coursing into him. She was inside him...he felt the warmth of her skin, the blink of her eyes, the rise and fall of her chest, the steady pulse of her heart, the movement of her body...the playful brush of her hair across her face...her lips holding back a laugh, a sigh, relaxing into a hidden smile...her small body nestled in warm linen...her eyes closing blissfully into sleep... Mulder felt his grip tighten madly around the man's throat he wanted it, all of it, none of it would be allowed to escape him. He saw how she looked up at the fog as it rolled over the red towers of the Golden Gate Bridge. He saw her watching the sailboats flitting across the bay. He saw how she peered into the dark gash under the city streets. He saw her looking out her hotel window to the beckoning bell tower of St. Francis of Assisi... And then he saw himself as she crossed the street to meet him in front of the cafe. He saw himself smiling up at her as she took the seat next to him. He saw himself bending close to her to speak of things he only trusted her ears to hear. He saw himself stand and move to her at the rooftop and the color his eyes took as they met hers...and the gentle way she leaned into him wishing him goodnight before tuning away and closing the door. But more than that, he knew her thoughts, the way she felt when she had experienced these little things. Why her spirit lifted when she looked up into his eyes and followed the sound of his voice...into an elevator, the car, a darkened hall, a muddy hillside, up a decaying stairwell, or along the city sidewalks-- a sweeter brighter reinvention of those hundreds of little moments they shared together every day... And then he saw something he had not shared with her, something he had not seen until now. *If I can save you Mulder, let me...* He saw her moving from her bed in the darkness, moving silently to look down at him asleep in the hotel room chair. He saw her eyes focusing on his face in the half-light. Just watching...breathing so softly to not awaken him. He felt her emotion welling within her and incredibly sensed her need to touch him, to bring him close to her, to press her lips against his face, his mouth, to entwine her delicate fingers in his hair, to tell him all the things she feared for him, wished for him, to tenderly soothe him with her sweet caresses... And then as quickly as it had come-- the sensations began to fade... ...no... She was leaving him, her electric pulse was dying and his own familiar rhythms were returning one by one. He begged for it to remain even as his vice-like grip released from the dead man, falling away. He gasped, pulling air into his lungs...he had been holding his breath. He sank to the ground with a groan, exhausted--sucking air in his lungs in great labored gasps. She was lying near him, her face to the ground. He blinked, how many seconds had passed? He struggled over to her and gently turned her onto her back, stroking her hair from her face, brushing the dust from her cheek with a tremulous hand. Her eyes fluttered open, liquid blue, staring up into his. "Mulder..." she uttered faintly as they lay on the ground under the Palace dome side by side. "Mulder, where are we?" ************************* MON: 11:45 AM Mulder sighed and opened his eyes. The memories he had been replaying in his mind, her memories, were growing ever fainter with each rerun--becoming less and less her and more tainted through his own inevitable embellishments. He couldn't help but slowly kill them from his efforts to own them to him. His mind was not her mind and his perceptions would eventually unintentionally falsify them. Were they all now just fragmented images of truth cut up and reassembled by what he wished she had believed? His recollections were becoming the memory of her memory. She was leaving him, the events of the last few days were now just lost electrons rejoining the fabric of space. An assortment of experiences as lost to her as they were to him. With her unaware, he silently mourned their passing. He could not bring himself to tell her--he just simply couldn't find the words to describe it. The meaning of her memories, however, were not lost to him. He had come to many understandings in the span of a few breaths under the Palace arches the night before. He was expressly grateful for them, in awe of them, and at the same time frightened by their significance. How often had she longed to reach out to him? How often as a friend, or partner, or whatever word could describe what they were to one another, had she given herself pause? Why did she hold back? She had shown him the answer--her fear of undoing him. He turned to her now asleep in the window seat next to him and glanced down at the pale curve of her face turned toward him. The plane was taking them home from the trembling Pacific coast to firmer ground. He reached out and delicately laid his hand over hers where it was lying limp against her thigh, tracing her open palm with his thumb. *It's too late to save me from you, Scully. Much too late.* When had it begun? he wondered. Was it when he first saw her lying prone in that hospital bed strapped to a network of machines, her eyes taped shut. Or was it earlier when she first tentatively spoke his name and he quickly silenced her in a futile attempt to create some brand of ineffectual detachment? No, it was earlier than that, it began when she began. When she invaded his private basement with her confident handshake and charmed smile. He knew somehow right then that nothing was ever going to be the same for him. It had all changed suddenly in the instant his eyes fell on hers. Fate. Inescapable as death and life. She had become his life, all the rest was a mere charade of tales and battles they were destined to play out. She stirred in her sleep, and perhaps in response to his faint touch, moved and let her body relax against him, her temple coming to rest against his arm. He dipped his chin and let his nose and lips fall against the crown of her head, feeling at peace with knowing that, since it began, all he ever wanted was to love her as he knew now without doubt, she loved him. As separate as they were one. "Just stay with me, Scully," he whispered into her hair so softly his breath barely moved a strand. "Don't ever give up on me." His eyes closed and her hand moved to fold into his. (END 11/11) ***************************************************** FEEDBACK: Four months of my life here folks...was it worth it? It'll be worth it if you just let me know you read it. Actually made it through alive. This was a killer to write and I plan on just turning out SMUT for a while. But do let me know if you feel another X-File opus from me might be worth another four months of butt-numbing labor in front of the computer! Terma99@aol.com.