DISCLAIMER:  Anybody you recognize ain't mine.  They belong
to CC, 10-13, and Fox, and I mean no infringement. 
Everybody else does belong to me, and boy are they getting
expensive to clothe and feed!

Rated PG for language and yucky scenes. (Think 2SHY and THE
HOST and you'll get my drift.)  Pseudo-Science galore--don't
expect real science from a former English major--it's quite
probably genetically impossible.  (Or is that just MORE pseudo-
science?)

And if any of this seems vaguely familiar, it's supposed to.



"The Plankton Adventure"
by Anne Haynes
AHaynes33@aol.com


Tucking the telephone receiver under his chin, Fox Mulder
shuffled the stack of files in his lap.  He'd already left
three messages on his partner's answering machine with no
luck.  Calling her cellular phone had yielded no better
results, and he was getting worried.  It wasn't like Scully
to be out of pocket on a Friday evening, especially after
being impossible to catch all day.

A thousand paranoid thoughts ran through Mulder's head in
the five seconds it took Dana Scully to answer her cellular
phone.

"Scully."

"Where have you been?" he asked.  "I've been trying to reach
you all day."

"I'm in Keystone Beach, Virginia.  My brother Charlie got
shore leave this weekend, and Mom and I drove down to visit. 
Is something up?"

"Nothing urgent."  Mulder's initial interest in the possible
X-File he'd come across that morning waned quickly in the
face of a far more intriguing mystery.  "Uh, Scully?  Is
your brother there with you?  Think I could speak to him?"

There was thick silence on the other end of the line.  Then
Scully spoke, her voice wary.  "No, Charlie took his wife 
and Mom into town to do some shopping.  I brought some work
along, so I stayed here at the hotel."  There was another
brief pause.  "Why?"

"No reason."  Mulder released a soft sigh, no closer than
before to finding irrefutable proof of the existence of the
elusive Scully Brothers.  "What are you working on?"

"Just an autopsy consult VCS sent to my office this morning. 
There were some anomalies, but I've found explanations for
all of them.  Nothing you'd find interesting."

"Scully, you sure know how to live it up on a Friday night
at the beach."

He sensed rather than heard her soft chuckle.  "And what
exciting plans do YOU have for the weekend, Mulder?"

He glanced at his VCR.  "Three blondes and two brunettes."

"All at the same time?"

"Maybe."

"Brave man.  So, no redheads?"

"You're the only redhead in my life, Scully."

"I think I'm touched."

He laughed softly.  "If I'd touched you, Scully, you'd know
it.  So, how's your brother?"

"Fine.  His ship leaves for the Baltic Sea Monday morning. 
Mom and I will be heading home tomorrow so he and Anne can
have a little privacy...."  Scully's voice trailed off.

"Scully?"

"Mulder, I've gotta go."  There was a soft click, then
silence.

"Scully?"

The line was dead.

Damn, Mulder thought, she's stealing my lines now.


*  *  *  *  *


Cherry-red light slipped through the space between the hotel
room curtains and sliced the dimness like a bloody razor. 
Scully put her notebook computer on the chair by the bed and
crossed to the window.  Behind her, her cellular phone
trilled, but she ignored it.  It was Mulder, no doubt. 
She'd call him back in a little while.

The hotel room she and her mother shared faced a long
stretch of beach.  Normally near-deserted on a cool February
night, the strip of sand now crawled with people drawn by
the spectacle of police cars and fire rescue vehicles parked
along the beach access road.

Scully grabbed her windbreaker and slipped it on over her
oversized gray t-shirt as she headed for the door.  She
snapped her gun and holster onto the waistband of her black
leggings, checked her pocket for her i.d., and headed toward
the beach.  She was, by profession, an ambulance chaser of
sorts, and she suspected a small beach town could probably
use the help of a doctor--or an FBI pathologist.

She flashed her badge at the uniformed cop trying to bar her
access to the scene.  His eyes widened at the sight of her
credentials, and he moved aside.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"A tourist found a body washed up on the beach.  Looks like
a shark attack."

Scully raised her eyebrows.  "A shark?"

"Big motherf--fish."  The patrolman eyed her nervously. 
"Big fish, from what I saw."

Scully frowned and walked through the shifting sand to the
water's edge, where a couple of men in plain clothes stood
over a dark, crumpled form lying half in, half out of the
water.  One of the men scowled at her and began to protest,
forcing her to bring out her FBI badge again.  

"I'm Special Agent Dana Scully.  What's going on?"

The younger of the two men cocked one dark eyebrow and
looked her over, his gaze vacillating from arrogance to
appreciation and back again.  "Don't remember calling the
feds, Miss Scully."

She bit back a sigh of exasperation, sick and tired of jerks
like this guy.  "I'm here on personal business, but I
thought I might be of assistance.  I'm a pathologist, and I
have several years of field investigation experience.  If
you'd like to check my credentials...."

"That's not necessary," the older detective said.  "I'm Lt.
Curry, this is Sgt. Miller.  And that--" he gestured toward
the body in the sand--"is the biggest mess I've seen since
JAWS III."

The special effects in the movie or the movie itself? Scully
wondered.  Prudently she held her tongue, never one to
indulge in gallows humor to deflect the horror of what she
saw on a crime scene.  Her detachment came from a core of
steel somewhere inside herself, a strength that reminded her
that she was part of the thin blue line between justice and
insanity.  She glanced at Lt. Curry, pointedly ignoring Sgt.
Miller.  "I didn't bring any gloves--"

Curry pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket. "Knock
yourself out, Agent Scully."

She snapped the gloves on and bent over the body.  Curry
held a high-powered flashlight on the scene, washing the
body in unnatural light.  Scully held her breath as the
first wave of decomposing flesh odor rose to invade her
nostrils.  She tamped down a little quiver of nausea and did
a cursory exam of the body.

Female.  The condition of the body made determining age
impossible without a more extensive post mortem exam.  The dirty,
matted hair on her head appeared to be sandy blond.  No obvious
signs of foul play--except the fact that half the abdomen was
gone, organs and all.

She bent closer to the body, touching the bloodless edges of
skin where the flesh had been torn.  The skin was unevenly
incised, suggesting a ripping action more consistent with a
bite than with a knife or other such tool.  No wonder the
policeman had mentioned a shark.

But Scully didn't think a shark had done this.  There were
no obvious broken bones, no severed limbs, no external signs
of trauma other than the ripped away flesh.  And something
about the tearing just didn't really fit, either.

Scully made a mental note of the relatively low rate of
deterioration.  She stood and looked up at Curry.  "My first
guess would be that she hasn't been in the water more than a
couple of days, but I'd know more with a look at the autopsy
report."

"I'm guessing that's the cause of death?"  He gestured
toward the gaping maw where the large chunk of flesh and
internal organs been ripped away from the dead woman's
abdomen.

"Maybe not.  Could be a post-mortem injury."

"A shark?"

"Maybe," Scully agreed. "Or any number of carnivorous fish.
Barracudas--bluefish can do a lot of damage, too."

"That would be one hell of a big bluefish."

"Well, we won't know anything until I get a chance to look
at the results of the post-mortem," she repeated.  Although
she suspected the answer wouldn't be as simple as a shark
attack. 

"It's the fourth body that's washed up in this general area
since November."  He nodded toward the body   "Three other
women, all with similar injuries.  The autopsies were
inconclusive concerning cause of death, and no one has been
able to determine the source of that kind of tissue damage." 

Scully sighed, knowing she should just head back to the
hotel and forget about the job for one single, solitary
weekend.  But she couldn't.  "Would you like me to assist on
the post-mortem on this body?"

Curry ignored Miller's soft snort.  "I'm sure Dr. Kimball
would appreciate that."

"Do you suppose I could take a look at the files on the
other victims?" she asked.

"Sure.  They're back at headquarters, of course."

"Down the beach highway?"  She and her mother had passed the
police station on the way in, if she remembered correctly.

"Yes."

"I need to go back to the hotel for a few minutes, but I'll
meet you back at headquarters in about an hour."  She
snapped off her gloves.  "Cordon off the area and have your
people do a thorough grid search of the beach.  I doubt
you'll find anything, since I'm pretty sure the body floated
in from another location, but thoroughness never hurt
anyone.  I could call in some reinforcements if you need--"

"We've got the state forensics lab sending folks up from
Richmond," Curry assured her.  "We'll take care of it, Agent
Scully.  After four bodies, we're getting pretty good at
it."

She nodded and turned abruptly.  Her calves aching with the
strain of trying to keep her footing in the loose sand, she 
made her way back to the hotel.  Her mother was in the room 
when she got there.  

"Dana, what's happening on the beach?"

"A tourist found a body, Mom.  I'm going to police
headquarters, see if I can help.  Where are Charlie and
Anne?"

"Charlie was called back to the ship.  Something about an
AWOL crewman."  Margaret Scully sighed.  "One of the
drawbacks of being an XO."

Scully spared a moment out of her hurry to smile at her
mother.  "You'd know, wouldn't you?"

"I know your dad loved the Navy and loved the sea, but
sometimes it's hard not to resent the time his other loves
took away from me and you kids."  She smiled back at her
daughter.  "But only sometimes, Dana.  So, I suppose this'll
be the last I'll see of you this weekend?"

"Maybe not.  Maybe the autopsy will clear up everything."

But somehow she doubted it.


*  *  *  *  *


Mulder jabbed the channel button on his remote control,
trying to find something to keep his interest.  He'd already
tried Scully's cellular phone three times in the last hour,
and he wasn't going to humiliate himself any further.

She was a big girl.  She could handle anything that came
along--probably better than he could.

But when his phone rang, he grabbed it before the first ring
died away.  "Yeah?"

"Mulder, it's me."  Scully's voice sounded tired, a little
distracted.

"What happened?"

"A body washed up on the beach in front of my hotel.  I went
to see if I could help."

"Foul play?" He sat forward, muting the television.

"Hard to tell.  I'm assisting the county M.E. with the
autopsy."

"What can you tell me about the case?"

"Well, the body is a female, age undetermined.  Been in the
water about two days, as far as I can tell."

"Cause of death?"

"Also undetermined, but the consensus around here seems to
be shark attack."  

"Shark attack?  Those aren't common on the Virginia coast,
are they?"

"Not that I know of, Mulder.  And I don't buy it, anyway. 
There's none of the peripheral damage you'd expect--no
broken limbs, no bite marks other than the evisceration."

"Evisceration?"  Mulder grimaced, passing a hand over his
face. 

"Her abdomen is ripped away, and most of her colon and lower
intestine with it."

"Aagh, God."  Mulder winced, all too able to visualize what
Scully was describing.

"Mulder, I've gotta go..."  Click.

"Scully?  Scully!"  He slammed the phone down.  Damn it,
what was she getting involved in down there?


*  *  *  *  *


Dana Scully emerged from the autopsy bay, shedding her
scrubs on the way to the showers.  Despite the fact that the
body had most likely been in the water for fewer than 72
hours, it had still been one of the nastier autopsies she'd
ever been part of--right up there with the Russian sailor
found in the Newark sewer.  She chuckled as she stripped off
the rest of her clothes and stepped into the shower.  This
time she'd found her way into an unpleasant post-mortem all
by herself, with no help from Mulder.

After a quick, thorough scrubbing to help rid herself of the
smell of decay, she rejoined the county M.E. in the police
station's war room.  Lt. Curry was there; Scully was
thankful to note that Sgt. Miller was not.  Also there with
Lt. Curry was a tall, slim man in his fifties.  Though clad
in a light tan windbreaker over a dark green t-shirt and
jeans, he wore an air of authority that transcended his
casual appearance.  "Chief Hank Taylor,"  Lt. Curry
introduced him to Scully.

Scully shook his hand, then turned to the M.E.  He nodded,
deferring to her expertise.

Quickly she outlined the autopsy findings.  "We have
concluded that the victim, Jane Doe #0004, died as a result
of drowning, and that the injuries to her body were post-
mortem."

"Any sign of foul play?" Chief Taylor asked.

"The indications are that the drowning was accidental,
although the deteriorated condition of the body made such a
determination difficult."

"And what caused the hole in her gut?" Lt. Curry asked.

"Scavenger activity within the ocean environment," Scully
answered carefully.  Confident that the death was accidental
and that the condition of the body was incidental to the
actual cause of death, Scully wanted nothing more than to
return to the hotel, spend a few hours with her sister-in-
law and her mother, and then go back home to Mulder.

She stopped in mid-yawn.

Home to Mulder?  Where had that come from?

"What kind of scavenger?" Lt. Curry persisted.  "A shark?"

Scully barely restrained herself from glaring at him.  "I
would have to say no.  The condition of the body is
inconsistent with a shark attack, in my admittedly limited
experience."

"Then what?"

She sighed deeply.  "Something smaller, and from all
indications, several of them."

Taylor looked skeptical.  "Several small fish eviscerated a
woman to that extent?"

She knew that the explanation sounded weak, but it was the
only thing that made sense.  Unfortunately, the men
surrounding her didn't seem to share her convictions.

Is this how Mulder feels? she wondered, when I poke holes in
his theories?

"It's the only explanation I can offer.  Since the damage
was done post-mortem, a more definitive answer isn't
necessary to the case."  She winced inwardly, not liking the
sound of that.  As much as anyone else, she hated to leave
questions unanswered.  But she was off-duty, after all.  She
was supposed to be enjoying a nice family weekend,  not
slicing open corpses.  Besides, she needed to call her
mother and let her know everything was okay.  And she also
needed to call Mulder back and tell him what was going on so
he wouldn't worry.

If he was worrying at all.


*  *  *  *  *


Mulder couldn't stand it anymore.  He grabbed the phone and
dialled Scully's cell phone number.  

It was busy.

He sighed and slammed down the phone in frustration.

What was happening?  Why hadn't she called him back yet? 
Should he drive down to Keystone Beach and see for himself?

She's a big girl, Mulder.  She's hauled your sorry ass out
of enough messes; she can certainly fend for herself.  If
you go traipsing down there uninvited, she'll ream you for
treating her like she's fragile and incompetent.

He stared at the silent phone.  I could say I just wanted to
visit with her mom....  

He and Maggie Scully were good friends, after all--since
Melissa's murder, he'd been making a point of spending time
with Mrs. Scully when he could.  God only knew why, but she
liked him--and he liked her.  Looking at Maggie, he knew
what Scully would be like in twenty years, and the thought
warmed him.  If he was very lucky, he'd still be around to
see her then.  Maybe even--

Don't go there, Mulder.  Dangerous territory.

He tried Scully's cell phone number again.  This time she
answered.  "What, Mulder?"

He winced at the impatient tone.  "Is everything okay?"

"Oh, just great.  I've walked into a bit of a mess, and--
gotta go, Mulder."  Click.

"Scully?  Scully!"  He hung up the phone with a soft curse.


*  *  *  *  *


Scully massaged her temples as Chief Taylor opened the file
folder in front of him.  As if I don't get enough government
conspiracies to deal with back in D.C., she thought.

"The Department of the Interior has set up a testing site
about two miles from here, in Willow Sands.  Very hush-hush,
but we're pretty sure it has to do with red tides."

Scully arched one eyebrow.  "Red tides?"

"Haven't you ever heard of red tides, Agent Scully?" Curry
asked.

She stifled a sigh of impatience.  "A red tide is the
discoloration of seawater caused by an exponential increase
of microscopic underwater organisms called dinoflagellates,
resulting in increased toxicity levels in sea creatures that
consume these organisms, such as clams and shellfish.  But
why do a study of red tides here in Virginia?  Aren't they
relatively rare this far north and at this time of year?"

"Don't ask me.  You ought to ask that government fish doctor
over in Willow Sands," Curry suggested.

Government fish doctor?  Scully's brow wrinkled.  "What's
his name?"

"Don't know.  Never met him."

"Then how do you know he exists?  How do you know there's
even a test site over in Willow Sands?"

Taylor stepped forward, his arms folded across his chest. 
"Agent Scully, Keystone Beach is a small town, and Willow
Sands is even smaller.  Word travels fast."

She held back another deep sigh.  Yeah, word travels fast. 
Like stories about alien abduction, satanic ritual abuse...
and killer cockroaches.  "Okay, fine.  Anybody have any idea
where this hush-hush test site might be located?"

"We think they're using an abandoned dockside restaurant in
Willow Sands.  The old Fish Shack on Beach Highway.  Two
miles down--can't miss it.  It's on an inlet, sandwiched
between the bay and the Atlantic."

"Have you ever been there?"

Taylor shook his head.  "We don't like to tick off the
government, Agent Scully."

Neither do I, she thought.  That's usually Mulder's cup of
tea.

But now she felt obligated to continue the investigation. 
If she didn't, the shark attack paranoia in Keystone Beach
would grow to astronomical proportions, and people would
probably start taking pot shots at poor, unsuspecting
porpoises that wandered too close to shore.

I'm doing this for you, Flipper, she thought.  She stifled a
sleepy chuckle and headed for her car.


*  *  *  *  *


Mulder glanced at his watch.  Almost twelve-thirty a.m.  Why
hadn't she called him back yet?  What kind of mess had she
gotten into?

Was she okay?

For God's sake, Mulder, stop it.

That was Scully's voice, Mulder thought with a little half-
grin.  My subconscious speaks in Scully's voice.

He put down the phone receiver gripped in his white-knuckled
hand and reached for the television remote.  Frohike had
sent over a new tape--guaranteed to knock his socks off.  He
pushed play.  On screen, a slim, red-haired woman wearing a
dark business suit walked into a darkened apartment,
shedding clothes as she went.  Under the jacket she wore a
hip holster.  

She looked enough like Dana Scully that his breath caught in
his throat.

She moved slowly, sensuously, small fingers deftly making
quick work of the tiny buttons on her silk blouse.  Mulder's
mouth went dry as she slid the garment from her milky
shoulders, baring full, round breasts in a lacy scrap of a
bra.  She smiled at the camera.  "Hello, Mulder.  Frohike
told me you liked red heads, and I like the idea of meeting
the infamous Fox Mulder.  So give me a call.  410-555-3442. 
Ask for Bridget."

Mulder stared at the screen, too stunned to move for a
moment.  Then the shot abruptly changed to Frohike's
grizzled, grinning face. 

"So, Mulder, what do you think of the lovely Bridget?  'Bout
dropped my teeth when I saw her at the Conspiracy Symposium
in Baltimore last month--could be the lovely Agent Scully's
twin, don't you agree?  Bridget's a member of MUFON, NICAP
and a charter member of WOMEN--Women of Mars, Earth and
Neptune.  And she thinks you're hot."  Frohike grinned at
the camera.  "Since a certain red head is off limits, I
thought I'd be a pal and help you out.  I myself am still
holding out for the real thing, however."

Mulder shook his head at the television.

"Now, to business.  Check out the what we pulled off the
satellite last night..."

The next few minutes of the tape were devoted to a series of
of blurry video segments portraying the escape, recapture
and eventual transport of something that might or might not
be an extraterrestrial biological entity.  Mulder studied it
with a critical eye, hearing Scully's voice in his head
again.  "It could be anything, Mulder," the phantom voice
whispered.  "A hoax springs quickly to mind."

He rewound the tape, careful not to go all the way back to
the lovely Bridget, and watched it again, shaking his head
slowly.  Nothing substantial.  Nothing worth pursuing.  

He frowned and rewound the tape.  For a split second he
considered watching the first part again, wondering if he
relaxed his eyes, let them go out of focus, he could pretend
he was actually looking at--

He pulled himself up quickly, crossed to the VCR, and jabbed
the eject button.  He pushed the tape to the back of his
haphazard collection and crossed to his computer, his mind
quickly switching gears.  Scully had said something about
shark attacks.  He seemed to remember coming across
something on the Internet about unusual shark behavior over
the past few months.  He booted up his computer and went on-
line.


*  *  *  *  *


Scully glanced around the darkened parking lot, noting the
obvious lack of light in and around the abandoned
restaurant.  Beyond the weathered clapboard building lay
another, more modern-looking structure, made of cinderblock
and painted a curious pale color that looked lavender in the
light from the crescent moon.  She saw a car parked there
and considered going to the obviously occupied building
first.  But it was after midnight, and she had no plausible
reason to awaken the occupants beyond the whim of a few
panicky small town lawmen.  So she headed straight to the
abandoned Fish Shack to look around.

As she approached the back door, her cellular phone burred,
sending nerves jangling down her spine.  She grabbed the
phone.  "Scully." 

"It's me."  Mulder's low voice greeted her.  "I've been
doing a little research, and I've found that there have been
over twenty reported cases of unusual shark behavior on the
mid-Atlantic coast since March of last year."

"Interesting, Mulder, but the victim found on the beach
tonight drowned to death.  The evisceration was post-
mortem."  She stood on tiptoe in an attempt to see through
the narrow rectangle of glass set high in the back door of
the restaurant.

"So I surfed the net for nothing?"

"Depends on what alt. groups you visited while you were
there."  She put her hand on the doorknob and gave a little
twist.  It turned easily in her hand, and the door gave with
a loud creak.

"What was that, Scully?"

"A door creaking."

"Where are you?"

"At an abandoned restaurant in Willow Sands."

"Willow Sands?"

She flicked on her flashlight.  The bright beam reflected
back off of something shiny and metallic.  An industrial
size stove, she realized.  She must be in the kitchen. 
"Willow Sands is a couple miles south of Keystone Beach.  A
tiny place, really, barely more than a few gas stations and
this restaurant."

"Why are you in an abandoned restaurant?"

"Because I don't think it's abandoned...."  She shone her
flashlight around the kitchen, noting the lack of dust and
the ship shape appearance of the area.  She pushed through
the hinged door near the commercial refrigerator, stepping
into a larger area.  Her eyes widened as her flashlight
exposed a huge tank filled with water.   "And it's
definitely not a restaurant."

"What do you see?"

"The dining room has been converted into a huge...aquarium."

"Aquarium?"

She flashed the light around, taking in the gigantic tanks
flanking a center walkway.  "There have to be ten huge
tanks, Mulder, full of fish."  Her flashlight beam caught
flashes of silver as fish darted in and out of the light. 
"Looks like they're all salt water species.  Pinfish, ocean
cats, sea bass...."  She walked slowly through the narrow
passageway between the tanks.  "Mullet, I think...and...."

A huge, gaping maw flew at her, razor sharp teeth opened
wide.  The round, gray snout banged against the glass,
making the water slosh.  Scully cried out, jerking away from
the glass.  Her nerveless fingers lost their grips on both
the flashlight and her cellular phone, and she heard them
clatter to the floor.

She scrambled backwards, stopping short when her shoulders
bumped into another tank.  She looked away from the beady
eyes of the shark and knelt on the floor, feeling for the
phone.  The light had gone out when she dropped the
flashlight; she suspected she'd shattered the bulb.

She followed the muted sounds she could barely hear over her
thundering pulse and found the cellular phone.  Mulder was
shouting her name, his voice hoarse.  She picked up the
phone.  "I'm here, Mulder."

"What the hell happened?" he roared.

"I got surprised and I dropped the ph--"  She swallowed the
rest of her words as she heard a soft click.  Light flooded
the room, and she saw just how big the tanks were.  

And just beyond, in the doorway from outside, she saw
something that made her jaw drop.

"Scully?"  Mulder's voice buzzed in her ears like a pesky
fly."

"Gotta go."  She hit the disconnect button and made a
concerted effort to pick her jaw up off the floor.

In the doorway stood a man, easily as tall as Mulder and a
good thirty pounds heavier--all of it lean, solid muscle. 
He wore cotton shorts and a tank top speckled with
perspiration where it clung to the muscles of his powerful
chest.  He looked like a sculpture--Michaelangelo's David
came to mind.  His face was equally perfect--golden tan,
piercing blue eyes, a sensual mouth and straight, well-
proportioned nose.  His hair was sandy blond and just long
enough to give him a look of rugged danger.

"Who are you?" he asked.

She pulled her badge from her jacket pocket.  "Agent Scully,
F.B.I.  Who are you?"

"Dr. Hare, Department of the Interior."

"Well, Dr. Hare, I have a few questions for you."

"Such as?"

She looked up and down his achingly beautiful body.  "What
are you doing dressed like that in February?"



Mulder stared at the phone, his heart in his throat.  He
tried her cell phone number again, only to be informed by an
impersonal recorded voice that the cellular customer he was
trying to reach was not available at that time.

Damn it, Scully, what's going on?

He stopped telling himself that she could take care of
herself.  That wasn't the point.  She was in a dangerous
situation, and he was her partner.  Covering her back was
his duty--his privilege.  

He tried the phone again, on the off chance he'd punched in
the wrong number.  He got the recorded voice again.

He slumped on his couch and stared at the phone, willing it
to ring.


*  *  *  *  *


"Well, Agent Scully, I'll have to agree with you.  This
doesn't look like a shark attack."  Dr. Hare grimaced and
looked away from the black and white Polaroid evidence
photos from tonight's crime scene as well as the previous
three.

Scully took the photos from him, half of her mind still
struggling with the effort to breathe evenly.  Dr. Hare had
excused himself briefly to change into a fresh shirt.  Not
that the skin-tight t-shirt he wore now constituted much of
a change.  It certainly didn't help her regain her
equilibrium.  Silently she bemoaned her own dishevelled
appearance--no woman in her right mind would want to meet
Adonis while wearing a rumpled gray t-shirt and sand-crusted
black leggings.  

As it turned out, Dr. Hare was indeed a Dept. of Interior
ichthyologist running an environmental study in the area. 
The Dept. of Interior had purchased the abandoned restaurant
several months earlier and converted it to a make-shift
aquarium to house the specimens temporarily extracted from
the sea as part of the study.  Dr. Hare himself was living
in the cinderblock out-building, which had once been a
convenience store but now had been converted to a large one
room apartment which held a bed, a portable stereo system,
and Dr. Hare's self-contained weight training apparatus.
Scully had learned all of this in a span of about a minute. 
Dr. Hare was one of the most forthcoming, fundamentally
guileless people she'd ever met, unlike a certain multi-
layered, self-preservative, stubborn-as-a-pissed-off-mule
partner she knew and loved....

Mulder, she thought with a niggle of guilt.  She'd hung up
on him and turned off her phone.  She'd have to remember to
call him back when she was through here.  She sighed.  "Can
you hazard a guess about what could have caused that
damage?"

"Any number of carnivorous fishes live in the Atlantic,
Agent Scully."

"Call me Dana," she said.

"Dana.  Call me Grey."  He smiled, baring perfect, even
white teeth.  

Scully's heart stuttered for a second, but she smiled back. 
"Grey, can you tell from the photos which of those fish
might have caused the kind of tearing wounds we found on
these bodies?"

"That's the problem, Dana.  I can think of several fishes
that might be able to make those kinds of wounds, but
they're all very small and not particularly prone to the
kind of scavenger activity I saw in those pictures."

Scully frowned, frustrated at her inability to find this one
last missing piece of the puzzle.  She sat back, looking
down at the grisly photos as if she could read the answer in
the streaks of dark and light, the shadows and the shimmers.

"Although I suppose if the school of fish were swarming...."
Grey's low, modulated voice faded away.  Scully looked up,
noting the little frown that marred his forehead, the tiny
lines merely serving to emphasize the absolute beauty of the
rest of his face. 

"What?" she prodded when he didn't continue.

"Like I told you, Dana, the Department of the Interior is
conducting a study on the eco-system of the mid-Atlantic
coastal region.  I don't know if you're aware of this, but
in the past few months, there has been some rather odd
behavior among the fishes, invertebrate life, and even the
plant life of this eco-system."

Mulder had mentioned something about shark behavior....
"Do you have any idea what might be causing this odd
behavior?"

"That's what we're trying to determine.  We've been taking
fish and sea life out of the habitat and testing them for
unusual levels of man-made pollutants to see if
environmental hazards may be behind this anomalous behavior.
So far, however, we can't find any evidence that pollution
is the cause, so now we're considering the idea of an
organic cause."  Grey stood and crossed to the huge tank
housing the shark that had startled Scully earlier.  "This
is a beltway shark.  Powerful, but largely non-aggressive 
even when provoked.  But this shark tried to bite my leg off
when I was transporting him here--and he was under mild
sedation at that."

Scully tried not to flinch when the shark made a pass behind
Grey, butting its snout against the glass.  Grey barely
seemed to notice.  "We've found only trace amounts of
substances that we would term pollutants.  But he has an
abnormally high level of testosterone."

Scully's eyebrows rose.  "Really."  For some reason, a picture of
Mulder flashed through her head.  

Grey crossed back to where Scully sat in a ladder back chair
he'd pulled from a store room near the kitchen.  "I'll be
right back."  He went through the swinging doors into the
kitchen.

Scully turned on her cellular phone and dialed her hotel
room, knowing her mother would probably still be awake,
worrying.  "Hi, Mom," she said when her mother answered. 
"I'm still in the middle of my investigation.  I don't think
I'll be home before dawn."

"Since Charlie's had to go back to the ship, I thought I
would stay in the room with Anne.  That way, you won't have
to worry about waking me up when you get in."

"Okay.  See you in the morning, Mom."  She hung up the
phone, remembering to leave the power on this time.  

Grey returned to the larger room, carrying a thick book that
looked something like a field journal.  He sat in the chair
across from her.  "I'm fascinated by the amazing amount of
socialization we find among various species of fish.  Within
the species you'll find complex, sophisticated systems of
behavior.  And, of course, there are hierarchal models of
behavior that govern interspecies relations as well."  He
waved at a tank near Scully.  "Take those eels, for
instance."

She whipped her head around, hiding a little frown.  Eels?

"Eels are probably my favorite fish.  They're so expressive. 
They move with the fluid grace of a ribbon dancing in the
wind, they have highly evolved rituals of behavior, and
there's speculation that their intelligence exceeds that of
almost any other species of fish."

Scully watched as a slim black eel slithered from behind a
large rock at the bottom of the aquarium.  She looked away
quickly.

"Did you know that a single electric eel can give off 600
amps of electricity?  Now, Dana, I don't know how much you
know about the so-called Bermuda Triangle--"

Scully stifled a small chuckle.

"--but I have this theory that mega-schools of eels swimming in
the Sargasso Sea give off a collective electrical charge
that's magnified by the highly conductive nature of the
bladder sacs of sargassum.  The resulting power surge is
strong enough to affect the electro-magnetic field in the
area, wreaking havoc upon the electrical systems of planes
and boats that pass through the triangle."

Scully cocked her head.  It was an interesting theory, she had to
admit.  "Mega-schools of eels...I'd never considered that."

Grey smiled.  "Do you find my theories somewhat bizarre, Dana?"

That thousand watt smile almost did her in.  "No." She shook her
head solemnly.  "I find them a nice change of pace."

Her cell phone trilled, making her jump a little.  Mulder, of
course, overprotective worry wort that he was.  She switched on
the phone.  "Later, okay?" she murmured into the receiver, then
disconnected.  She'd call Mulder back when she was through here. 
She turned back to Grey.  "You know, Grey, I've always found fish
to be very...interesting...."


*  *  *  *  *  


The phone trilled, jarring Mulder from a fitful doze.  He
grabbed the phone resting on his chest and jerked the
receiver to his ear.  "Scully, are you okay?"

"Fine, Mulder."  She sounded drowsy.  "Just having trouble
sleeping."

"What happened at the research site?"

"It's legitimate.  The Department of the Interior is
conducting a study of the mid-Atlantic oceanographic eco-
system.  I met an ichthyologist named Dr. Hare who confirms
what you told me, Mulder--there have been several cases of
aberrant behavior among sharks, rays, eels and even some
shellfish in the mid-Atlantic region."

"Did he shed any light on what happened to your drowning
victim's body?"

"Not really, but I did find out just about everything there
is to know about fish."  There was a soft creaking sound on
Scully's end of the phone; Mulder pictured her getting up
from the bed, her bare feet padding softly across the hotel
room carpet.  What was she wearing? he wondered. The same
silk pajamas she always took on assignment?  Of did she have
a different style of sleepwear for when she was off-duty? 
He squelched the urge to ask.

"Did you know that freshwater eels actually spawn out in the
Sargasso Sea, and the elvers don't make it back to shore for
anywhere from one to three years?" she asked.

Mulder frowned, wondering just how much time Scully had
spent chatting with the ichthyologist.  She was always such
a sucker for that scientific type.  "Did you know that
walking catfish are capable of breathing air and walking on
land?" he returned, his voice a bit more dry than usual.

"Grey has a theory about the Bermuda triangle you might find
interesting--"

"Who?"

"Dr. Hare.

"His name is Grey Hare?"

"It's a family name.  Anyway, Grey believes that huge schools
of eels in the Sargasso Sea give off a collective electrical
charge that's conducted by the bladder sacs of the sargassum,
resulting in a power surge strong enough to affect the electrical
systems of planes and boats that pass through the Bermuda
Triangle."

"His name is Grey Hare?"

"Mulder, can I confess something to you?"

He winced.  Oh, God, she IS falling for an ichthyologist
named Grey Hare!  He swallowed with difficulty  "Yeah, sure,
Scully."

"I hate eels.  Despise them."

He released a small sigh of relief.  "Well, I'm sure lots of
people feel the same way."

"When our family was living in San Diego while my Dad was at
Miromar, he took us scuba diving.  I came face to face with
a snake eel, and I almost drowned from trying to scream in
my scuba gear."

"Was it a girly scream, Scully?" he asked softly.

"I thought I was going to die and go to hell for what I
wanted to do to that eel right at that moment.  It was
slithering across the ocean floor, looking just like a
snake, and if I'd had a shotgun right then, it would've been
dead."  She sighed.  "I killed a snake once, Mulder, and I
swore then and there that I'd never kill another defenseless
creature again.  Yet there I was, face to face with a
harmless little fish, and all I could think about was wiping
him from the face of the earth...." Her voice trailed of,
and Mulder heard a loud banging sound from her end of the
phone.

"What's going on, Scully?"

"Mulder, I've gotta go."  Click.

"Wait--Scuh--unh--"  He sighed and hung up the phone.  That
does it, he thought.  I'm driving down to Keystone Beach.


*  *  *  *  *

Scully looked down at the body lying in the sand about a
mile from her hotel room.  Another female, partially
eviscerated.  But this one was different from the others.

She was fresh.

"I doubt she'd been dead more than five or six hours,"
Scully murmured, rising from her hunkered-down position by
the corpse.  "And there's some bruising around the throat--I
suspect the hyoid bone's been fractured, indicating
strangulation.  Can't blame this one on drowning, Chief
Taylor."

The body was that of a female, approximately 25 years of
age, dark brown hair and light gray eyes.  Slim, muscular
and well-proportioned, she still wore the tattered remnants
of a Navy uniform.

Her mother had said something about a crewman from Charlie's
ship going AWOL....

Guess we know why now, she thought with a frown.  "This time
it's very important to do a thorough grid search," Scully
told Taylor and Curry.  "The fact that she washed up so
quickly indicates to me that she may have been killed very
near here and her body dumped.  The incoming tide worked
against the killer from a time standpoint."

"Oh, my God, what's that?" Lt. Curry's eyes widened, and he
recoiled from the body.

Scully looked down at the corpse, and a ripple of surprise
and revulsion shot through her as well.  But she tamped it
down and bent over the body.

In the gaping hole where part of the woman's intestines
still lay in a torn jumble, a small, gruesome-looking fish
was flopping backwards toward the sand, its razor-sharp
teeth still clutching a small section of bowel.

"What the hell is that?" Taylor asked.

"It's a fish.  I'm not sure what kind, but I know someone
who will know."  Scully grabbed an evidence bag and swiftly
scooped the fish into it, careful not to get anywhere near
its needle-toothed maw. 

*  *  *  *  *

Mulder stuffed a pair of gray boxer shorts into his duffel
bag and reached for the ringing phone.  "What's happening,
Scully?"

"Another body.  I think it may be a missing crewman from my
brother's ship.  I've sent the local police to contact
Charlie and start asking some questions."

"Are you about to do the post mortem?"

"No, the county coroner here is a good guy.  He can handle
it."

"Well, where are you, then?"

"I'm back at the Dept. of Interior site.  I think we may
have found our culprit.

"I'm coming down there, Scully."

"Oh, Mulder, there's no need to do that.  This looks to be
simple scavenger activity.  I found a fish inside the body
that looks more than capable of causing the kind of damage
I've been seeing--at least, if there were several of them
working on the body at one time.  I'm just going to get Grey
to confirm it for me, and we'll close the case--at least as
far as I'm concerned."

"I still think there has to be something deeper going on
behind all the strange behavior of aquatic life in the area,
Scully.  I'd like to check it out myself."

"Well, if you really want to make an hour's drive in the
middle of the night, Mulder, that's fine with me.  But I
plan to be in bed by the time you get here."

Alone or with company? Mulder wondered, scowling as he heard
a muffled male voice on the other end of the line. 

"Gotta go," Scully murmured.  Click.

That does it, Mulder thought.  If Scully's going to bed with
anyone tonight, it's NOT gonna be an ichthyologist.


*  *  *  *  *


Grey Hare held the evidence bag up and turned it this way
and that.  Before taking the fish to the test site, Scully
had dipped up enough seawater to keep the ugly little
creature alive for the trip to Willow Sands.  Wriggling in
the make-shift portable aquarium, the fish looked like a
nightmare version of a goldfish a kid might bring home as a
prize from the county fair. 

"It's a toadfish," Grey pronounced after less than a second.

"Is it common to this area?"

"Yes."

"Does it normally attack people?"

He cut his eyes at her.  "No.  There's a larger cousin,
called the goosefish, that's been known to attack people. 
But toadfish aren't normally that aggressive.  And they
don't normally feed in large packs, which is what it would
take to do the kind of bodily damage you've described to
me."

She frowned.  "Would this kind of behavior be in line with
the other anomalous behavior you've found in the aquatic
life in the mid-Atlantic ecosystem?"

He nodded slowly.  "Yes, I suppose it would be."

My part of the mystery solved, she thought.  But she wasn't
entirely satisfied with handing it over to Dr. Hare, even if
he WAS the expert.

He motioned for her to follow him toward the back of the
restaurant.  He had set up a laboratory in what was once the
men's restroom.  Scully leaned against one of the urinals,
trying to appear nonchalant as she fought the ridiculous
feeling that, according to the very laws of nature, she was
somewhere she wasn't supposed to be.

"This guy's just about dead," he noted, watching the fish
begin to list a bit, rolling sideways in the water in the
evidence bag.  "I'm going to see if I can get a semen sample
before he goes.  I'd like to see if there are any
anomalies."

Scully crossed her arms, fighting the urge to chuckle.  She
was lounging against a urinal in a men's bathroom, talking
about semen samples with the most physically beautiful man
she'd ever seen.  There was something wrong with this
picture.

I shouldn't be talking semen samples...I should be TAKING
them...

She shifted position, her face going red with shock and
embarrassment.  Dana Katherine Scully, what kind of thought
was that?

Well, hell, she'd spent YEARS working intimately with a man
who was maddeningly attractive but off limits--frustration
was bound to set in sometime.  And with Grey Hare, there
were no barriers.  Nothing to stop her from fulfilling some
long-ignored needs....

Her cellular phone rang, making her jump.  "Scully."

"Scully, this place is a madhouse."  In the background she
could hear loud voices, threatening to drown out Mulder's
voice.

Nevertheless, at the mere sound of his low, dry tones, the
tension that had been building in her over the last few
minutes snapped and dissipated, and she began to relax. 
"Where are you?"

"I'm at an all night beachside diner in Vaxville, about
twenty-five minutes north of Keystone Beach.  Place called
Crystal's.  Apparently a body was discovered here tonight as
well.  Similar condition, from what I can glean.  All the
tourists and locals who were awakened by the sirens have
gathered here and are planning a shark hunt."

"A shark hunt?"

Grey looked up at Scully, a frown creasing his perfect
forehead.

"Don't ask me," Mulder said.  He sounded a little tired.  

She felt a warm rush of concern.  He didn't sleep enough as
it was without having to drive down here in the middle of
the night to come to her aid on a case she should have never
gotten involved with in the first place.  "Mulder, we think
we've solved the question of how the bodies came to be in
the conditions they were.  I suspect the circumstances are
similar in the Vaxville case, so why don't you come on down
to Keystone Beach, grab a motel room and get some sleep? 
Mom and I are at the Keystone Inn.  Better yet, flash your 
badge and get the desk clerk to let you into my room.  I won't 
be there before dawn anyway, so the bed's yours."

And if I get there before you wake up, I may join you, she
added silently.

God, she was hormonal tonight.

"I don't know, Scully--I'm hearing some pretty interesting
tales.  Did you know that there have been several sightings
of strange lights in the sky over this whole area for the
last sixteen months?  Isn't that the time span of the
behavioral anomalies?"

She closed her eyes.  Trust Mulder to find extraterrestrial
activity in the midst of chaos.  "Mulder, there are no 
indications that aliens are causing toadfish to eviscerate 
dead bodies off the shores of the mid-Atlantic."

Grey's forehead wrinkled even more, an amused glint in his
eye.  Scully sighed, knowing what he was thinking.  

He thinks I'm partnered with a nutcase.

Hell, I AM partnered with a nutcase, but he's MY nutcase.  

And he was also the brightest, strongest, most frustrating
and endearing man in the world, even if he did think aliens
were among them.  She just hoped Dr. Hare would hold his
tongue, because tonight she was too tired to fight the urge
to deck anyone who spoke ill of Mulder--and she didn't want
to have to explain to A.D. Skinner why she'd belted a Dept.
of the Interior ichthyologist.

"I'm going to snoop around some more," Mulder said.  "See
what I can find.  Where are you?"

"I'm with Dr. Hare."

"Oh."

She held back a little smile.  Worried, are we, Mulder? 
Good.  It wouldn't hurt him to wonder a bit.  "Well, the
offer of the hotel room still holds, Mulder.  Room 121 at
the Keystone Inn."

"Okay.  Call me if anything new comes up."

"Will do."  She hung up the phone.

"Boyfriend?" Grey asked.

"My partner.  Apparently there's been a body discovered up
in Vaxville--in the same general condition as the bodies
here in Keystone Beach.  He's looking around."  She silently
willed him not to make mention of Mulder's alien theory.

Mercifully, he didn't.   He had already turned his attention
back to the toadfish.   "You know, Dana, this is odd...." 
He beckoned her over and sat back so she could look into the
microscope on the desk in front of him. 

She looked through the double eyepieces and saw a frenzy of
microbial activity.  "What is that?"

"I took some epidermal cells from the toadfish.  It's
crawling with those organisms.  They look like some sort of
bacteria."

"Have you come across this in the other species you're
studying?  In any other toadfish?"

"I've tried to avoid taking epidermal samples in my study. 
My research is limited to non-invasive observation of the
physiology and behavioral patterns of live specimens, and in
fish, epidermal abrasion is a sure way to weaken a fish's
immune system--it increases the likelihood of infection.  
But since this toadfish is a goner anyway, I thought--"  His
eyes widened.  "Oh, my gosh, I wonder why I didn't think of
this before!"

"What?"

His clear blue eyes sparkled, making her just a little bit
dizzy.  "Microbe Wars! Of course!"

"Excuse me?"

"Microbe Wars--it's the vernacular for a project Sesim
Industries is doing over in Paint Bridge.  They've been a
top name in microbial enhanced oil recovery for years.  They
did some work on that big oil spill off the coast of British
Columbia a couple of years ago."

She nodded, following him so far.  "But what's Microbe
Wars?"

"Dr. Bone with Sesim Industries has come up with the
theory that microbes can also be used to combat natural
environmental hazards such as red tides."

That must be where the Keytone cops had come up with their
red tide research theory.  Right theory, wrong perpetrator. 
"So you think that Dr. Bone's research may be the source
of these organisms infesting this toadfish's epidermis?"

He nodded.  "I'll need to do some more tests--I think I'm
going to have to take some risks on the live specimens now.  
If I'm right, it'll be worth the risk."

"Do you know Dr. Bone?"

He shook his head.  "Only her work.  She's absolutely
brilliant.  I've always wanted to meet her, but she's
something of a recluse."

Scully glanced at her watch.  After 1:00 a.m.  Not much
chance the brilliant Dr. Bone would be up and around at
this time of night, but it wouldn't hurt to take a look
around the place.   "Can you give me directions to Paint
Bridge?"


*  *  *  *  *


Mulder spread the roadmap across the table in front of him,
darting a glance at the laconic old man sitting across the
booth from him.  "So where did you see the lights, Mr.
Adler?"

The man crooked a grizzled finger at the map, tapping a
small black dot in the middle of nowhere.  "Right there."

Mulder looked down at the map.  "Paint Bridge?"

"Real strange stuff goin' on there, son.  Real strange."

"What did you see?"

"Strange glowing lights in the water at night."

"In the water?"  Mulder quirked his eyebrows.

"Like the sea was on fire."

In his head, Mulder heard Scully's soft, reasonable voice. 
Old wives' tale, Mulder.  Mass hysteria, Mulder.  A hundred
reasonable explanations, Mulder.

But he pressed on.  "Mr. Adler, what do you think about the
claims that sharks have run amok in the waters off the coast
here?"

"Poppycock." Adler snorted.  "It ain't sharks doing these
things, you know."

"It's not?"

"No, sir, it's not."  Adler leaned forward, his eyes
darting around the small diner.  He lowered his voice. 
"It's the flounders."


*  *  *  *  *

Sesim Research Labs
1:20 a.m.


The Sesim Research Laboratories facility was a very 
modern looking structure of glass and sandstone.  Scully 
parked in the front lot next to lone burgandy sedan skewed 
across two slots near the entrance.  She locked her car 
behind her and strode through a muddy crimson corridor of
odd red light shed by the eight lamps that flanked the walkway.

The door was locked, but the minute she touched the handle,
a soft whirring noise caught her ear, drawing her attention
to a small security camera just to the right of the door. 
Scully met the camera lens, lifting her face so that the
unseen security guard could see she wasn't trying to hide
anything.  A moment later, a disembodied female voice
floated from a small panel beneath the camera.  "I'm sorry,
but we're closed for the night."

Scully darted a glance at her watch.  Almost 1:20 a.m.  Of
course they were closed for the night.  Any sane person
would be in bed at this hour.  But sanity wasn't her strong
suit these days.  Assuming there was a microphone somewhere
in the intercom panel, she lifted her F.B.I. badge to the
camera and spoke.  "Agent Dana Scully, F.B.I.  I need to ask
you some questions."  

There was a long pause, then the disembodied voice murmured,
"Wait for the buzzer, then open the door.  Take the elevator
to the second floor.  Take a left and I'm in the second
office on the left."

Scully tucked her i.d. in the pocket of her windbreaker,
waiting for the buzzer as directed.  The elevator was just
ahead; it was a new, spacious model, she noted, having
uneasy flashbacks to the shiny, modern elevator at Eurisko
Industries.  Damned thing had flung her to the floor.

(And Mulder picked you up and dusted you off, his hands
strong yet gentle...).

She sighed, pushing away the thought.  Yep, definitely
hormonal tonight.  She wasn't sure it was a good idea for
Mulder to take her up on her offer of her hotel room.  If
she got there while he was still in bed....

The elevator doors opened, saving her from finishing that
treacherous thought.  She took the left as instructed and
then tapped on the second door to her left.

"Come in."  

Scully recognized the same disembodied voice that had
greeted her by intercom.  But she didn't immediately see
anyone when she walked into the darkened room.  The door
swung closed behind her as if pushed by unseen hands.
Hairs rose on the back of her neck, and her fingers
automatically inched toward the pistol tucked in the       
holster at the base of her spine.

"No need for alarm, Agent Scully."  

The soft voice came from Scully's right; she swiveled her
head toward the unseen speaker.  Her eyes were slowly
adjusting to the darkness, revealing shapes in the murk. 
She caught a glimpse of movement just before the she heard a
soft "snick" and stark red light filled the room.

A thin, dark-eyed woman looked up at Scully from her perch
on a three-legged stool in front of a high powered
microscope.  The light of the red bulb in the gooseneck lamp
at her elbow stained her face crimson and cast eerie, bloody
shadows across a small stretch of the room, which Scully
immediately recognized as a laboratory. 

God, what Mulder wouldn't give to be part of this little
scene, she thought.  "Are you Dr. Bone?"

The dark-eyed woman nodded.  "Michele Bone."  She held out a
thin, long-fingered hand.  

Scully shook it, afraid to use too firm a grip for fear of
shattering the delicate-looking bones.  "Dana Scully."

"I know.  I saw you on the monitor."

Scully looked around, seeing only one monitor.  And it was
dark.

Wait--no, it wasn't.  As her eyes continued to adjust to the
strange red light, she saw a faint flicker of movement on
the monitor.  It was on, but the bright control had been
turned down until the picture was barely visible.

Curiouser and curiouser.

"I'd like to ask you a few questions about Microbe Wars, Dr.
Bone."  

"Microbe Wars?"

Scully's eyes narrowed slightly.  "Your research into the
elimination of red tides through microbial intervention.  Or
is that top secret?"

Dr. Bone's lips curved slightly.  "I thought top secret
would be YOUR area of expertise, Agent Scully."

"No, actually my area of expertise is forensic pathology,"
Scully countered with a slight smile of her own.  "I assisted
in an autopsy earlier this evening in Keystone Beach.  It
seems that toadfish are engaging in an unusual amount of
scavenger activity in the mid-Atlantic region and...." 
Scully's voice faltered as she realized what she was saying.
She could almost hear Mulder's soft, "Go with it, Scully."

"Toadfish?"  Dr. Bone lifted one dark brow.

"They're not responsible for the deaths, just for some post-
mortem mutilation."  It just sounds worse the more I talk,
Scully thought. 

"What would that have to do with my research?"

"I've been consulting with Dr. Hare of the Interior
Department's research facility in Willow Sands."

"Dr. Grey Hare?"  Dr. Bone asked.

Scully nodded.  "He's an ichthyologist--"

"Oh, yes, I know.  I read his article in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
about the mating rituals of the Common Eel last October. 
Absolutely fascinating."  Dr. Bone chuckled softly, the red light
giving her an oddly demonic appearance.  "He called it 'Sex
and the Single Eel.'"

Scully just stared at her for a second, wishing with all her
heart that Fox Mulder had been here to provide the perfect
comeback to that.  It took another moment to gather her
thoughts into some semblance of order.  "Anyway, Dr. Hare
believes that the odd behavior of the toadfish may be a
result of some of your microbial research.  Have you been
conducting tests in the vicinity of Keystone Beach and
Willow Sands?"

"My staff has been doing spot testing in those areas, yes." 
Dr. Bone nodded.  "I can't supervise them, of course. 
Of necessity, the tests must take place during daylight
hours."

Scully processed that remark, her mind once again straying
into what she thought of as "Mulderland."  She glanced at
the red bulb in the lamp, remembering a strange bit of
esoterica her partner had passed along a couple of years
back.  Something about red light being the only kind of
light that....

"Why can't you supervise your staff during the daylight
hours, Dr. Bone?" Scully asked.

Dr. Bone blinked in surprise.  "Oh, I thought you knew. I 
assumed since you're were F.B.I. you'd have made a point of
knowing all about me before you came here."

"Knowing what?"

Dr. Bone smiled again.  "Why, Agent Scully, surely
somebody mentioned that I'm a vampire?"


*  *  *  *  *


Keystone Beach
1:33 a.m.


Mulder parked in front of the Keystone Inn and sat for a
moment in the silence, staring at the dimly lit manager's office.

He played out the coming scenario in his mind--"Yes, I really am
an FBI agent--yes, I have Agent Scully's permission to be
here--no, I wasn't at Waco or Ruby Ridge--give me the damned
key!"  He closed his eyes and sighed, wondering for the hundredth
time what had possessed him to drive down here in the middle of
the night to chase killer flounders when he could be on his nice,
hard couch at home, watching the lovely Bridget do her Scully
act--

There's your answer, Mulder.  

Every answer to every question in his world always came back to
Dana Scully.

He thumbed the button on his cell phone and punched in her
autodial number.  

She answered after two rings.  "Scully.

"Hi, it's me.  Where are you?"

"Gonna have to get back to you."  Click.

"Damn it, Scully!"  With effort, he overcame the urge to fling
the cellular phone through the windshield.  He jammed the phone
back into his jacket pocket and leaned his head back against the
head rest, closing his eyes for a moment and trying not to
visualize Scully wrapped in the arms of a Department of the
Interior ichthyologist.


*  *  *  *  *


"Vampire?"  Scully tucked her cellular phone in her pocket and
turned back to Dr. Bone.

"Well, not in the mythological sense.  I suffer from a disease
called porphyria.  Have you heard of it?"

"Porphyria is a hereditary disease characterized by the body's
excessive production of porphyrins.  Symptoms can include acute
abdominal pain, gastrointestinal dysfunction, neurologic
disturbance, skin lesions, and hypersensitivity to light.  It's
widely believed to be the source of the vampire myths of the
Middle Ages."  Why is it, Scully thought, that at least once
every case I end up sounding like I'm spouting the Encyclopaedia
Britannica?

Dr. Bone tucked her hair behind one delicate ear.  "I suffer from
quite a bad case of it, actually.  I work only at night, sleeping
during the day because I cannot bear sunlight or most artificial
light.  Of course, that's not a bad thing.  You'd be surprised
how much work one can accomplish without other people around as
distractions."

All very interesting, Scully thought, but porphyria had nothing
to do with the strange post-mortem eviscerations taking place
along the mid-Atlantic coast.  "Can you think of any way your
microbial studies might have an effect on the aquatic ecosystem? 
Have any of your tests turned up anomalies which might explain
the abnormal behavior of the sea life around here?"

"We're still in the middle of testing; it would be hard to give
you a definitive answer."  Dr. Bone quirked one pale eyebrow. 
"I'm curious, Agent Scully.  Why is the F.B.I. involved in this
sort of investigation?"

"I'm not really working in an official capacity."  Scully
shrugged, beginning to wonder why she was here herself.  Despite
the puzzle of the voracious toadfish, nothing in this case really
warranted F.B.I. intervention.  It wasn't like the toadfish were
KILLING people.

And she was tired.  Sleepy.  Wanting nothing more than to crawl
into bed with Mulder and--well, okay, maybe not sleep....  

Oh, GOD, Scully, get your mind out of the Muldergutter!

"Dr. Bone, I'm staying at the Keystone Inn.  You can also reach
me on my cellular phone."  She handed the researcher a business
card.  "If you can think of anything that might be causing the
behavioral anomalies--"

"Well, there IS something we're trying that may be significant,
now that I think about it."  Dr. Bone turned back to her computer
and punched a few keys.  Scully squinted at the darkened monitor,
trying to make out something beyond inky blackness and the
faintest of ghost-like movements across the screen.  "Hmm-- I
don't know if this will mean anything, but one of the tests we've
been conducting is to see if we can take microbes that are
naturally a part of the mid-Atlantic ecosystem and induce them to
attack and consume dinoflagellates on demand."

Scully lifted her eyebrows.

"We wanted a temporary way to increase the microbial consumption
level during times of excess dinoflagellate multiplication.  A
way to control the growth of red tides without introducing a
'solution' that is equally deleterious to the ecosystem."

Scully nodded.  "And how did you propose to do that?"

"We exposed the microbes to gonadotropins.  We discovered by 
accident that gonadotropins, which are responsible for the sexual

development of many biological organisms, spur a temporary surge
of aggressive behavior in the microbes, including predatory
behavior.  
So far, the preliminary tests have been successful."

Scully frowned, remembering her earlier conversation with Grey
Hare.  "Gonadotropins are responsible for the development of
testosterone in male animals."

Dr. Bone nodded.  "And estrogen and progesterone in females."

"So you used luteinizing hormones?"

Dr. Bone nodded again.  "We did a study on the ecosystem here,
looking for a native species that was naturally aggressive, in
abundant supply, and small enough to extract the luteinizing
hormone without danger to our researchers."

"Let me guess--you harvested gonadotropins from toadfish."

Dr. Bone's eyes widened.  "Yes.  How did you know?"

Scully ignored the question.  "How did you administer the
gonadotropins to the microbes?"

"We merely added the hormones to the nutrient source."  

"Assuming that aquatic life such as fish and shellfish consumed
the microbes you released into the local environment, might they
also be affected by the ingested gonadotropins?"

Dr. Bone frowned, considering the question.  "I suppose, but the
small amounts of hormone released isn't likely to affect anything
larger than single cell organisms."

Scully frowned, nibbling her lower lip.  Despite Dr. Bone's
protestations, it was too much a coincidence that the Sesim
Industries research study was releasing toadfish gonadotropins
into the local waters just as the local aquatic life had begun to
exhibit bizarre behavior--and excessive amounts of testosterone. 
And there was the matter of the organisms Grey Hare had found
infesting the toadfish--

She peered at her watch in the gloom, barely making out the
hands.  Almost 2:15 a.m.   Would Grey still be awake?  If not,
was what she discovered here enough reason to wake him?

What would Mulder do?

That settled it.  "Dr. Bone, is there a way I could get a sample
of your microbes?" 


*  *  *  *  *


Keystone Inn
2:02 a.m.


Mulder clicked the remote control, seeking something on
television to distract his reeling mind.   Where the hell was
she, and why couldn't she take one little minute to talk to him? 
Was she with Hare?

He dropped the remote control and picked up his cellular phone,
staring at the keypad.  Star 1 was the memory dial for her cell
phone.  His thumb hovered over the buttons.  Maybe if he called
often enough, he could distract her--make sure she didn't enjoy
herself--

With a sigh, he dropped the phone on the bed beside him and lay
back against the pillows, trying not to notice that the bedspread
already smelled like her, the soap and sunshine scent that always
let him know she was around, close and safe.  Resisting the urge
to turn and press his face into the scented fabric, he stared up
at the ceiling and faced a few hard, cold facts.

She's not your wife, Mulder.  She's not your girlfriend.  She's
not your property or your business or your concern.  You have no
jurisdiction over her bed or her heart or her body.  And you have
no right to interrupt her if she wants to sleep with Grey Hare or
anybody else.

He shut off the television and sat up, tired of agonizing over
Scully and the ichthyologist.  He'd driven down here on his free
time to help Scully tie up the loose ends of this case, not to
lie here on her bed like a cuckold waiting for his wayward wife
to come home.  

He'd passed the Keystone Beach Police Department on his way to
the motel.  Maybe he could drop by, flash his badge, and find out
what the hell was going on.


*  *  *  *  *




Scully bent over the microscope in Grey Hare's beach-front
laboratory, watching the tiny microorganisms dance wildly under
the glass.  "This was on every epidermal sample you took?"

"I've checked eight different species so far.  They all have the
same infestation."  Grey's breath stirred the hair on her neck,
sending an involuntary shudder down her spine.  The sensation was
raw and unnerving, especially in the tight confines of the
converted men's restroom, and Scully realized she was holding her
breath.

She released the pent-up air.  "This would explain the bizarre
behavior among these fish?"

He moved around her, leaning against the nearest urinal.  "I
imagine any parasitic infestation of this sort would cause
behavioral changes in a species.  I've been thinking about the
photographs of the bodies found so far.  You noted that they are
all females, all missing portions of their lower abdomens.   Were
all the reproductive organs still present?"

Scully's frowned, following his train of thought and not sure she
liked where he was headed.  "No.  The post mortem examinations
noted that the ovaries and parts of the uterus of each of the
victims were missing."

"Okay, Dana--this is where it gets a little weird--"

I know weird, she thought, thinking of Mulder.  Wonder if he's at
the hotel yet?  In my bed.  Wearing those black silk boxers--or
not....

"The microbes ingest the toadfish gonadotropins, rendering them
aggressive.  They fulfill Dr. Bone's expectations and double
their consumption of the dinoflagellates in the test area.  But
the gonadotropins have an additional, unexpected result--the
microbes begin to attack the aquatic life in the area--sharks,
pinfish, toadfish, even molluscs, shrimp, squid--"

Scully nodded.  "But how does that connect to the strange
toadfish behavior?  Dr. Bone said the amount of gonadotropins
released into the test area could hardly have such a strong
effect on larger organisms." 

Grey waved his hand at the microscope.  "You see for yourself how
aggressive the microbes are.  Perhaps through the infestation,
they are passing along the gonadotropins to their hosts.  The
hosts, affected by the upsurge in hormonal activity, behave with
unusual aggression as well.  In the case of the toadfish, the
aggression leads to uncharacteristic scavenger activity."

Scully passed her hands over her face, suddenly bone weary.  "And
when the toadfish came across the drowned swimmer's body, they
went after her reproductive organs--why?  Out of some sort of
craving for more hormones?"

"Why not?"

She stared at him.  "Because it just doesn't work that way.  How
would the toadfish know where to find hormones in a human body?"

"Smell?  Some other sense that fish have that we humans don't
have?  There's a lot we may never know about any species outside
our own because we don't have the capacity to share their
experiences and they don't have the capacity to communicate those
experiences to us.  For all we know, fish may have nine or ten
senses that render them uniquely able to hone in on hormones in
the human body."

Scully blinked rapidly, fighting the urge to burst into laughter.

You don't know it, Grey Hare, she thought, but you just
out-Muldered Mulder.  But it was too late and she was too tired
to do anything but nod.  "Okay, fine.  We'll go along with this
theory.   So now what?"

"Well, since we don't know how dangerous or long-term an effect
these super-charged microbes may be having on the ecosystem, I
think we'll have to take steps to put an end to the testing. 
Perhaps I should have a word with Dr. Bone myself."

That should be interesting, Scully thought, remembering the
bizarre woman she'd left in the dark recesses of the lab in Paint
Rock.  "All right.  But you might need to go tonight--"  Her
cellular phone burred softly, interrupting her.  She made a
little face of apology to Grey Hare and answered.  "Scully."

"Hi, it's me."  Mulder's voice was loud, fighting a cacaphony of
raised voices in the background.  

"Still at the diner?"

"No, I'm at the Keystone Beach P.D.  This place is nuts, Scully."

"What's going on?"

"Well,  half a dozen drunken sailors, for one thing--the Keystone
cops gathered 'em up for questioning in the death of the female
ensign whose body washed up this evening."  The voices behind
Mulder grew gradually fainter.  She heard a soft clicking sound
like a door shutting and most of the background noise
disappeared.  "Better," he said. "I went into the men's room for
a little peace and quiet."

She stifled a chuckle.  "Odd, I'm in a men's room myself."

The silence on the other end of the phone begged an explanation.

"Long story, Mulder.  So, is Charlie there?"

"Charlie?"

"My brother, Charles Scully, XO of the U.S.S. Kuusamo?"

"Ah, one of the mythical Scully brothers.  No, unless he's tanked
to the gills and singing every dirty ditty known to man, he's not
here.  Where are you--besides in a men's bathroom?"

"I'm at Grey's lab in Willow Sands.  He thinks he may have found
an explanation for the strange scavenger behavior that started
this whole mess.  I'll explain it when I get to the hotel.  Wave
goodbye to the nice sailors and I'll meet you there in an hour."

"Make it an hour and a half.  I've discovered something
interesting, Scully.  Did you know that there's a test site in
the town of Paint Bridge where Sesim Laboratories is releasing
microbes into the ocean in an attempt to create a natural
bio-toxin that will--"

"--control the growth of red tides?  Yes, Mulder.  As a matter of
fact, there's strong reason to believe that these tests may be
the culprit behind everything that's going on here.  Grey and I
are headed there right now.  I'll let you know what happens."

"Scully--"

"Gotta go, Mulder.  See you at the motel."  She hung up the phone
and turned to Grey.  "Dr. Bone says most of the test take place
as soon as the sun rises, so let's see if we can head them off. "

Her cellular phone burred again, and she punched it on with a
sigh.  "What, Mulder?"

"Agent Scully?"  A soft woman's voice hummed through the
earpiece.  "This is Dr. Bone.  I have...um...a situation."


*  *  *  *  *


Sesim Laboratories On-Site Facility
Paint Bridge, VA
3:14 a.m.

Paint Bridge was a tiny dot on the map, demarcated on the
beach highway by a bait shop and a convenience store.  The
beach was too rocky to lure many tourists, the lifeblood of
the coastal economy in that area.  Sesim Laboraties had set
up shop at the end of a once-public fishing pier that had
been shut down once the new state pier in Keystone Beach was
opened.  The former information kiosk was now the
headquarters of on-site testing, Michele Bone had informed
Scully on the phone.  The eccentric scientist was beside
herself with worry.  "I got a phone call from Vince Ferris,
the on-site team leader.  He said that the staffers were
going berserk--yelling at each other, screaming about bugs
trying to burrow into their ears--and I can't leave here to
go because of the light--"  Scully had promised to go check
things out for her.

Scully warily eyed the well-lit kiosk as she and Grey Hare
stepped out of her car.  There was no sound of yelling.  No
sound at all.  "You stay here, Grey."

"Are you sure?"

Scully pulled her gun and checked the clip.  "Yeah, I'm
sure."  She slowly headed up the weathered gray planks of
the pier, listening for any sounds of danger.

The kiosk glowed in the night like it was on fire.  Scully
suddenly understood why Dr. Bone couldn't come--entering
that shack would be torture, considering how light-sensitive
she was.

Scully inched closer.  Still no sounds.

She was less than a yard from the large kiosk when she heard
the first voice.  It was male, low and tense.  "Listen to
reason, Gordon."

"Don't you understand?  I can feel them under my skin."  The
second man's voice was almost a moan.

"We'll get you help, Gordon.  We'll get them out of you." 
The first man's voice again, low and calm.

"You didn't go into the tanks, Vince.  You don't know what
it's like."  The second voice--Gordon--made a little
whimpering sound.  "I feel like my body's being eaten from
inside."

"Listen very carefully, Gordon."  Vince said.  "Dr. Bone
told me the microbes we've been testing have displayed the
tendency toward infestation.  That's probably what you're
feeling.  We need to get you back to the laboratory and run
you through a de-tox shower.  We know how to remove the
microbes, but you have to put down the gun."

Great, Scully thought--the man's infested with super-
aggressive microbes, he may well be tanked to the gills with
testosterone, and he's packing.

She drew closer, trying to get a glance through the kiosk
window without betraying her own presence.  She crept toward
the edge of the window.

Inside the surprisingly spacious facility were three people. 
One man had his back to her.  He was hunched and sweating
and holding a huge speargun.  About five paces in front of
him, facing the window, was another man, also sweating,
holding his hands up in submission.  She caught just a
glimpse of the foot and ankle of the third person--someone
lying supine.  Quite possibly a casualty.

She ducked back away from the window and considered her
options. On her way there from Grey's lab, she had called
the Keystone Police for back-up, but they were still a good
ten minutes away at least.  

She took another peek in the window. 

Her eyes widened with surprise. 

They were gone.


*  *  *  *  *

Must be the place, Mulder thought, catching sight of
Scully's car parked in an otherwise empty gravel lot near a
long pier that jutted into the Atlantic.  Halfway down the
pier, a well-lit shack glowed like a beacon.   He pulled his
car up next to Scully's and parked.  As he reached for the
door handle, he realized there was someone sitting in the
passenger seat of Scully's car.  A man--sandy blond hair,
blue eyes, an utterly perfect profile.  He looked at Mulder
in curiosity.

Mulder's stomach knotted.  He lowered the window.  The man
in Scully's car did the same.  "Let me guess," Mulder said. 
"Grey Hare."

"Dana told me to wait here."

"Dana," Mulder mimicked under his breath, opening the car
door and stepping out.  "Where did she go--up the pier?"

"Yeah," Grey answered.  "Should I come with you?"

Shaking his head, Mulder pulled his S & W from his hip
holster and checked the clip.  "This is NO place for an
ichthyologist."  He snapped the clip back in place and
headed up the pier.


*  *  *  *  *

Scully cautiously entered the kiosk.  It was empty except
for the body lying sprawled near a large open-topped barrel
that reeked of fish.  She checked the body for signs of
life, despite the harpoon sticking out of his chest.  He was
most decidedly dead.  She carefully sidestepped him and
looked around the room, wondering how two people could
simply disappear.  She crossed to the barrel and glanced
inside.  Chopped up pieces of fish, squid and shrimp floated
in oily-looking water like some kind of stinking stew.  Chum
to lure fish in for testing, she supposed.

She headed back across the shack when she felt the floor
give slightly under her.  She stopped and looked down at the
rough plank floor.

A trap door.

She found the latch and carefully tugged the trap door open. 
Beyond the door, crude wooden stairs descended into
darkness.  Scully took a deep breath and held it, listening. 
She could hear the sound of water lapping against the
pilings, whispering against the rocky shoreline beneath the
pier.  She heard furtive sounds of movement.  Quietly, she
released her breath and stepped through the trap door.

The steps led down to the underside of the pier, where
water-darkened pilings holding up the structure were
anchored in the bedrock beneath the sand.  Scully moved as
quietly as possible, her gun firmly in hand, listening for
more sounds.

Unfortunately, she was not the only one listening for sounds.  

"Hold it."

She froze.

"Put down the gun."

The voice came from behind her.

Slowly, she lay the gun on the bottom step and turned to
face her captor.

It was the one called Gordon.  He still bore the speargun. 
The wicked point of the spear was pointed right at her mid-
section.

"You're in on it, too, aren't you?"

"In on what?" she asked.  She glanced around, looking for
the other man--Vince.  "Where's Vince?"

"He was in on it.  He was one of the aliens."

"Aliens?"

"The aliens are inside me.  They're eating my insides."

"No, Gordon.  It's the microbes.  Remember what Vince told
you?"

"Alien microbes."  He twitched wildly.  "They're inside me...."

"Listen very carefully, Gordon.  Listen to what I'm saying. 
Regular ordinary microbes have apparently infested your
epidermis.  They are making you feel itchy and hot, aren't
they?"

Gordon nodded, his eyes wild.  

"Those microbes have ingested large amounts of luteinizing
hormones which they are passing to you.  These hormones are
producing an upsurge in your testosterone level, rendering
you extremely angry and aggressive.  But if you'll trust me
and come with me, we can get rid of the infestation.  But
you HAVE to put down the speargun.  Put it down, Gordon."

"I c-can't...."

"Yes, you can.  Put down the speargun, Gordon, and we'll go
get you help."

His grip on the speargun loosened slightly, and the angle of
the barrel dropped to the side a bit.  Scully silently
gauged how quickly she could for her own gun before he could
aim the speargun in her direction again.  She released a
small sigh.  Not quickly enough.  

She tried another tack.  "Gordon, are you a marine
biologist?"

"No, I'm a microbiologist."

"Then you should know what's happening with the microbes,
right?"

"They're not regular microbes, lady.  I know from microbes,
and these aren't.  Something's been happening to them over
the past few months.  We see lights in the sky, lights in
the ocean, and now the microbes have gone crazy."

The microbes weren't the only ones who'd gone crazy, she
thought.  Luckily, she was used to dealing with crazy.  
"What did the lights look like?"

"They were bright as the sun, but real small.  And they
darted around like pinfish, all over the sky.  Then they'd
dive into the water."

"Did they make a sound?"

"A trilling noise.  High pitched."  The angle of the
speargun's barrel dropped away even further from her. 
Gordon's hands were shaking and his whole body was
quivering.  Of course, if he was infested by microbes, he
was probably itching like hell.  

Scully wondered how much more distracted she should let him
become before she made her move.

"I've got them beat now, though.  Let 'em come.  I'll blow
them to kingdom come."

Scully's muscles, bunched in preparation of making a dive
for the gun, froze.  "Blow them--"

"This pier is rigged, lady.  Rigged but good."

"Rigged how?"  She darted her eyes around the murky
underpinnings, but the night was dark.  Only the faint light
of the moon's reflection on the water filtered under the
pier.

"Plastique."

Oh, crap, Scully thought.  "Plastique?"

"Sesim uses it in our oil studies--set off charges to test
for underground petroleum deposits."  Gordon was quivering
like a flea-bitten hound.  "Wasn't hard to come by."

"And you've got this pier rigged?"

"Yeah."  He waved his free hand.  "Every tank, every piling. 
All rigged with plastic explosives.  Let the aliens come
now.  Just let 'em."

Marvelous.  Scully glanced at her gun lying on the bottom
step, then back at the speargun.  

Not yet.  

But soon.

Damned soon.


*  *  *  *  *


The shack was abandoned, save for the corpse impaled with
the harpoon.  Mulder winced as he checked the body for any
vital signs.  Damn it, Scully, what the HELL have you gotten
into here?

Was she lying hidden somewhere, hurt or worse?  He looked
desperately around the shack.  It was much larger than it
had appeared from outside.  There might be a closet, a
hidden compartment--

Sudden inspiration struck him and he reached into his
pocket.


*  *  *  *  *

"Look, Gordon--there are no such things as aliens."  Scully
kept her eye on the spear gun.

"I saw the ships.  I heard them."

"You probably saw a shooting star.  Or a low-flying plane. 
And underwater phosphorescence is common--there are any
number of creatures who emit light energy.  You're a
scientist, Gordon--you know that, don't you?"

He passed his free arm over his forehead, wiping away
perspiration.  Scully herself was freezing--the February
night was mild but by no means warm.  She wondered if the
microbial infestation was causing Gordon to run a high grade
fever.  It certainly seemed plausible.  It would explain at
least a portion of his dementia as well.

"Phosphorescence...," he repeated, blinking and shivering.

"Right.  Everything here has a perfectly scientific
explanation.  There are no aliens invading the earth--"

A trilling sound sliced through the cold, damp air.  It was
coming from Scully's pocket.

Suddenly, Gordon was alert and on edge.  "You're one of
them!"  He drew up the spear gun, and Scully realized she'd
run out of time.  She dove for the step and her gun.  She
heard a loud "snick" sound and a thud.

She drew her gun and steadied it on Gordon, who had dropped
the spear gun and was looking over her shoulder,  his eyes
wide.  

"Goldam!" he muttered.

She glanced over her should and saw the spear sticking into
a gadget attached to a piling.  Whatever the gadget was, it
was emitting low beeps and a flashing luminescent display. 
Not turning her back on Gordon, Scully edged closer.

It was a timing device.  Counting down.  50, 49, 48....

Oh, shit!

She scrambled for the stairs, grabbing at Gordon.  But he
backpedalled away from her, laughing wildly.   "Kaboom!" he
shouted, dancing around, his flesh still quivering. 
"Gotcha, you alien bastards!"

"We've got to get out of here!" she shouted at him, but he
darted further away, toward the sea.

She glanced at the timer.  40, 39....

She took the stairs two at a time, slamming the trapdoor
open.  It hit something solid, and she heard a gasp of pain. 
Scrambling out, she barely registered her partner's stunned
face before she grabbed his arm and hauled him out of the
kiosk.  "It's gonna blow!" she cried, half-dragging him with
her down the pier away from the kiosk.

She felt the impact of the blast before she heard it.  It
shoved her and Mulder several feet forward, knocking them
from their feet.  She landed with a painful thud in the
sandy shoulder between the pier and the parking lot.  She
had barely begun to feel the pain in her ribs where she
landed when something heavy slammed into her back.  And
another something.  And another.

She felt Mulder's body roll toward hers, half-covering her
as debris rained from the sky.  Moving debris.  Flopping
debris.

Fish.

Moments ticked away and finally she realized she hadn't felt
anything hit her for a few seconds.  She ventured a peek
from beneath Mulder's arm. 

She was surrounded by fish, squid, eels, shrimp, molluscs--
if it swam, floated or burrowed in the Mid-Atlantic, it was
flopping around her.  The plastic explosives had blown up
all the fish holding tanks, not to mention the pier, the
kiosk, and poor demented Gordon.

She nudged Mulder.  "Are you okay?"

He opened his eyes and looked at her.  He reached out and
plucked a piece of squid from her hair.  "Oh, yeah, Scully.  
Happy as a clam."

*  *  *  *  *


Paint Bridge
4:12 a.m.


The Keystone police arrived in time to pick up the pieces,
so to speak.  Keystone had jurisdiction over the Paint
Bridge area, as Chief Taylor was more than happy to point
out to Mulder and Scully as he oversaw the securing of the
crime scene.

Grey Hare hovered nearby, really getting on Mulder's nerves.
The annoying pretty boy bastard had managed to escape the
great fish explosion without so much as a drop of fish guts
touching his oh-so-perfect body.  Mulder had fared far
worse, as had Scully, despite his efforts to shield her body
with his own.

Her overcoat was stained and sodden, her hair hanging in
stringy, goopy clumps.  She'd managed to remove the bulk of
fish parts from her hair and clothing, but the truth was,
she reeked.  He reeked too.  They reeked--as they did
everything--together.  The couple that stinks together....

Chief Taylor tucked his notebook in the breast pocket of his
shirt and struck a small-town sheriff's pose in front of
them, a half-smile on his face.  He seemed to find great
pleasure in seeing FBI agents covered in fish innards.  "We
found Gordon Howard's body.  We also found Vince Ferris---
he's alive.  Howard shot him but the spear stayed in place,
not letting him bleed out.  He crawled behind some big rocks
out near the water's edge.  They protected him from the
blast."

"That's good news," Scully murmured.

"Yeah.  Well, if you ask me, something about this whole
mess...smells."  His eyes glinted with humor.

"Ha ha."  Mulder exchanged glances with Scully.  Her phony
half-smile was painful to look at.

"Why don't y'all head back to the hotel?  No point in
fishing around for clues now."  Taylor chuckled aloud as he
turned and walked away.

Scully sighed and plucked away another piece of fish flesh. 
She looked up at Mulder and was opening her mouth to speak
when a woman's voice called out her name.

"Agent Scully?"

Mulder looked in the direction of the voice.  His eyes
widened with surprise at the sight of the small, swaddled
figure approaching from the direction of the dimly lit
parking lot.  He gathered by the voice and the slight build
that the new arrival was female, but it was hard to say for
sure, for she was covered from head to toe.  Slacks, boots,
leather jacket, leather gloves, her head turbaned by a thick
wool scarf, her eyes shielded by heavy duty dark-lensed ski
goggles.  

She spoke through a tiny opening in the scarf.  "Oh, my
God."  She faltered as she apparently got sight of the
damage from the explosion.  "Gordon and Vince?"

"Dr. Ferris was taken to the regional medical center--
apparently Dr. Howard shot him with a spear gun," Scully
said gently.  

"Looks like Dr. Howard was killed in the explosion," Mulder
added.

The woman turned her head toward him.  Her glasses were so
dark they were virtually opaque.  He narrowed his eyes a
little, knowing there was a story behind her strange garb
but not quite sure what it was.  

Scully gestured toward him.  "Uh--Dr. Michele Bone, this is
my partner, Fox Mulder, and this--"

Grey Hare stepped forward and held out his hand.  "Dr. Bone,
I'm a big admirer of your work.  I'm Grey Hare--with the
Department of the Interior.  I've been doing an ecological
study of the Mid-Atlantic coastal environment."

The small mummy shook his hand, inclining her well-protected
head.  Mulder felt laughter knocking at the back of his
throat.  This was just too bizarre, even for him.

Dr. Bone turned to look at Scully.  "I'm sorry I sent you
into this mess.  I'm glad you're not hurt."

"I'm just sorry that I couldn't help Dr. Howard."

"What happened?"

Scully outlined the same story she had told Mulder and Chief
Taylor earlier.  "I tried to talk him down, but it was too
little too late."

"So the microbes were infesting the researchers as well?"

"From what I gathered, apparently Dr. Howard had been
somehow exposed to the microbes, perhaps in the testing
process," Scully answered.  

"I've been giving some thought to our theory, Dana," Grey
Hare interposed.  Mulder shot him a dirty look, but the
ichthyologist seemed oblivious, his attention focused on
Scully and Dr. Bone.  "If the toadfish gonadotropins were
making the microbes prone to infestation, the luteinizing
hormones from other species might create an entirely
different response.  I mean, without further research,
there's no way to predict how the microbes might respond."

"So gonadotropins from a sailfish, for instance, might
create a completely different reaction in the microbes?" Dr.
Bone turned toward Hare, her small body alert with interest.
"Dr. Hare, that's an interesting thought.  There may be ways
to control the microbes and their usefulness that we've
never considered."

"Call me Grey."  He gently took her arm.  "I've been
absolutely fascinated with your studies for months--I think
that the Department would be very interested in a joint
project--and I'd be very interested to hear your assessment
of my own research." As he led her back toward her car, his
hand tucked solicitously under his elbow, he added, "May I
call you Michele?"

Mulder glanced at Scully, noting the slightly wistful look
in her eyes as she watched them go.  "Well, look at it this
way, Scully...."

"I know, I know.  The next time hormone-charged microbes
infest the Mid-Atlantic marine ecosystem, maybe their uber-
children will have devised a way to turn it into a Disney
World Theme ride."  She arched one eyebrow at him.

He chuckled, feeling a little more sure of his territory now
that Grey Hare was out of the picture.  "So, what's up with
the mummy?"

"Wrong horror movie, Mulder.  Dr. Bone is actually a
vampire."

He arched his eyebrows, his stomach coiling slightly. 
"Vampire?"

Scully sighed and tugged at his arm. " I'll tell you all
about it later.  Now, considering you have a swordfish
sticking through the front windshield of your rental car,
Mulder, what do you say I drive us back to the motel?"

"What about Hare?"

She glanced across the parking lot, where Grey Hare and
Dr. Bone were huddled next to Dr. Bone's car, heads close,
lost in conversation.  "I think he's right where he wants to
be."

"What about you?"  He held his breath.

She looked up at him, her face in half-silhouette, the right
side bathed golden by the yellow lamps along the beach
highway.  "Let's go take a shower and hit the sack, 
Mulder."

He released his breath, lowering his eyelids slightly.
"Best offer I've had all day," he teased.

She lifted her chin, a devilish light flickering in her pale
eyes.  "It's early yet, Mulder."  She turned and headed
toward her rental car.

He somehow found the equilibrium to follow.

*  *  *  *  *


Keystone Inn
5:58 a.m.


Scully glanced out the window at the first pink glow of
sunrise over the Atlantic, her fingers faltering to a stop
on the keyboard of her laptop.  She sighed softly, taking a
moment to appreciate the beauty of the approaching day, then
resumed her report.

"Science is the prism by which we refract our world,
separate it into knowable, quantifiable pieces.  But for all
the knowledge we have gained over the past centuries, there
are still questions, still surprises.  And when we apply
science on top of science, knowledge on top of knowledge,
there is always the danger of unexpected consequences. 
Agent Mulder and others look to space and the shadows for
marvels and mysteries, but I find enigmas every day in the
open places and vast, unexplored territory of the natural
world.  I wonder if we have become so arrogant in our
scientific and technological prowess that we have lost sight
of the huge amount of understanding that still eludes us.

"Might we be looking to the skies for answers--and missing
the answers that lie beneath our own feet?"

Scully reached for the can of cola by the lamp, glancing out
the window again.  She stopped in mid-reach.  A small blue
light glowed in the water not far from the horizon,
shimmering like a star.  As Scully watched, it erupted from
the ocean with a faint splash and shot skyward.  It rose and
was soon lost among the last faint stars.

She leaned forward, her heart in her throat, blinking
rapidly.  Surely she had been seeing things--

A soft whisper of sheets behind her shook her from her dazed
stillness.  Mulder's warm, sleep-roughened voice sent a
little tremor through her.  "What are you doing way over
there?"

She turned to look at him.  His hazel eyes were heavy-lidded
and irresistible. 

"Just writing up my report," she murmured.

His beautiful mouth curved in a little pout.  "Workaholic."

"Patience, Mulder."  She turned back to her laptop and
resumed typing.  "The wonders of the world are much closer
than the nearest solar system.  Why look heavenward when we
have yet to solve the mysteries of the human body--or the
human heart?"

She studied the last line, tucked the hidden meaning deep in
the depths of her own heart.  Then, aware that some secrets
were best left concealed for the time being, she deleted the
last four words, stored the file and shut off the computer. 

She closed the drapes, shutting out the coming day, and
crawled back into bed next to Mulder.




The End