Frail sunlight sliced through the vertical blinds, doing its best to penetrate the smoky conference room. It only partially succeeded, falling short of the dark, oval table in the center of the room. Five men sat at the table, clad in light gray business suits. Not a one of the men was below the age of fifty, and not a one existed officially. Unnoticed among the droves of similarly clothed denizens of the major cities, they went about their lives, shadows on the face of humanity. Shadows with the powers of life and death, power enough to turn even the plainest truth into a maze of haze and smoothly spoken lies with a single phone call. Machiavelli was their saint, and gain their only ethic. These were the men who ruled the world... even if the world didn't know it yet.
The atmosphere around the table held a tightly leashed tension, and the more junior members' gaze slid nervously around the room. None wished to speak, for to speak was to leave a record, and records were dangerous things. Especially when the subject was failure.
Finally, one of the men lit a cigarette, the momentary flare of the lighter casting a flickering light over his heavily lined face. He took a deep drag from the cigarette, then spoke. His voice was thick and measured. "We have a problem."
"You refer to Agent Mulder, I presume," the Elder at the head of the table snapped. He glanced at his colleague with barely concealed contempt. "That is not our problem. That is *your* problem. One, I might add, which you have consistently failed to address. Quite frankly, we are all tired of hearing about Mulder and his 'quest'. And we are tired of your failure."
The stocky Elder glared down the table, as the other men in the room watched silently. The confrontation had been brewing for years, as the two agents from the FBI had fought their way closer and closer to the "truth". Neither deceit, abduction, or death itself had stopped the duo, but still elements of their strange brotherhood had fought against the final solution. And now, the agents had again uncovered one more tiny piece of the puzzle. It was time to stop fucking around, the First Elder thought. He placed his palms on the table and levered his heavy body carefully out of the seat, never breaking eye contact with the smoking man. "It is past time for Agents Mulder and Scully to meet an unfortunate accident. This game you're playing has lost whatever charm it ever had. We've lost too much."
The smoking man snuffed the newly lighted cigarette out in a shallow black ashtray, and smiled thinly. "I agree completely."
The heavy man blinked, as around him, the silence was broken by minute shuffling and murmurs. He sat back down, momentarily at a lost. He frowned at the no longer smoking man, who simply continued smiling placidly. He didn't even seem to realize that he'd reversed one of his most stringently held positions, as easily as a child abandons a broken toy. The heavy man cleared his throat, then said, "We'll arrange it immediately, then."
"No."
"I beg your pardon?"
The smoking man said softly, "It's my responsibility. I have a plan, one that will insure that Mulder's quest will not become a crusade, or anything more than a quick blurb in the back page of some conspiracy buff's secret diary. All I require is your authorization to go forward."
"Your 'plans' haven't been that successful, before."
The smoking man bowed his head briefly, acknowledging the point. When he raised it again, his eyes glittered. "This time will be different. All I ask is time to implement it."
One of the others at the table asked suspiciously, "How much time?"
"A year, at most."
"A year! Impossible. Who knows what they will have accomplished in a year? We must act now."
A cold sigh cut through the suit's protests. "I assure you, our intrepid agents will have... other things on their minds."
The heavy man was unimpressed. "Perhaps you will share this... plan with the rest of us."
Again the thin smile. "No, I don't believe I will. You'll find out soon enough. Phase One should be going into operation this evening."
Shocked and outraged protests rose from the assembled conspirators. He quelled them with a look, and waited for total silence again before continuing. "I, of course, apologize for my haste but the opportunity is here, and cannot be ignored. However, there is still time to cancel the operation, I suppose."
A long moment of silence, then the heavy man said, "I don't believe that will be necessary. I see no reason not to try your plan, whatever it is. But, " and here his voice sharpened to a razor's edge, "I do believe that you've had enough chances with these two. If this... attempt fails, we may have to consider retirement." From the looks sent around the table, none of the men would feel their colleague's 'retirement' to be a great hardship.
The smoking man nodded once, understanding completely. As if that was a signal, the meeting ended, and the others left quickly, to disappear once again to the shadows they ruled. Only the one was left was left sitting, and he stared without seeing at the rich wood paneling of the walls. Finally, he took a slim phone from his pocket, opened it, and dialed a number. It connected after one ring, and was answered by silence.
"Do it," was all he said. He placed the phone back into the inner pocket, stood, and left the room, his shoulders bowed. The faint whiff of tobacco lingered behind him.
------------
"So what now, Mulder?" Scully asked, her voice slightly on edge. She could still feel the aftermath of adrenaline, even after a day. It had been close this time, as close as it could get. The rental still bore the marks of the pursuit, including a bullet hole in the head rest where Mulder's head should have been. Would have been, if the file they'd risked their careers and lives for- again -hadn't spilled all over the floor of the passenger seat. He'd dived downward just as the shot had been fired. The rental place hadn't been happy with them, and their superiors wouldbe furious, but it was better than being dead.These wild chases were getting too damn close.
And it didn't seem to affect Mulder at all. He shrugged, and looked through the file again, peering at the encoded information. "Now, we make a copy, and see if the guys can't break this code." He looked up, and she suddenly realized that she was wrong. The excited shine to his eyes, and the subdued flush riding high on his cheekbones told her that he was affected by the events of the last couple of days, after all. Only, where she saw danger, he saw The Truth. Where she saw another dead end, Mulder always saw the Rosetta Stone, the key that would break the entire conspiracy wide open. She looked at the file, and wished that she could have his faith. But all she saw was a thin, disarrayed pile of gibberish.
She shook her head slowly. The three nights without sleep were obviously getting to her. Maybe this time it would actually be a lead they could follow. After all, the military had fought pretty damn hard to keep it out of their hands. Maybe. With a sigh, she stood, and stretched, feeling the scratch of clothing worn at least a day too long. "Mulder, I'm going home to get some sleep. You should, too."
"I will, Scully. Soon." He didn't even look up from the papers, absorbed in trying to decipher a code that would probably take a Cray to break. Scully slung her coat over her arm, and left, barely repressing another sigh. Normally, she would try to talk him into some sleep, but not now. She had a sneaking feeling that if she stopped moving now, she'd pass out.
The Hoover building was deserted, not an unusual occurrence at 3 am. Scully made her way through the empty halls to the elevator. When the silver doors closed in front of her, she sagged wearily against the wall. Through the sleepy fog of her thoughts, she pushed the button for the lobby, instead of the parking garage. There was no way she could drive home like this. She'd get Security to call a cab.
"Miss...miss?" Scully jerked awake, blinking her eyes at the cab driver. "We're here," he said, gesturing at her apartment building. She yawned her thanks and stumbled out of the cab, only barely remembering to pass the driver a couple of bills on her way out. Since he didn't stop her, she assumed she'd gotten the amount right.
Scully made her way slowly up to her apartment. The uselessly brief nap in the cab had only served to bring the weights of fatigue crashing about her ears. She walked in a dream, insulated from the late night chill by the dullness of her sleep-deprived senses. It was, she thought as she fumbled the key into her lock, remarkably like being drunk.
The door opened into blackness, and she entered gratefully, tossing both coat and keys haphazardly onto the unseen couch and making her way by instinct toward her bedroom. A few steps away, Scully stopped, and cursed under her breath. She turned around to close the door, and heard it close and the bolt slide home. Before she could do more than blink against the sudden absense of light, she felt the hot lance of a hypodermic pierce her skin. She stumbled backwards, and the burning sensation washed over her in a tidal wave, followed by numbness, and finally, oblivion.
-----------
"Scully?" Mulder pounded on the apartment door again, and received the same lack of response as the first time. He checked his watch- 10 a.m. He got out the spare key Scully had given him, quickly unlocked the door, and stepped into the apartment. "Hey, Scull..."
He walked into chaos. The apartment had been trashed, thoroughly and brutally. Shattered CDs, plastic shards, and glass fragments had been ground into the carpet, and winked in the light from the door like fallen stars. The few plants that Scully had managed to keep alive had been torn to shreds, and the soil smeared over walls and floor. He took another stunned step forward, and felt something crack under his foot. Mulder looked down, and saw Scully's face peering diminutively from a snapped picture frame. He raised his foot, bent, and carefully wiped the glass from the photo and slid it out from the remains of the frame. With a sort of detached horror, he noted that Scully's left eye had been pierced and torn by a splinter of glass.
He straightened, the photo still held loosely in his left hand, and moved swiftly toward the bedroom, calling his partner's name. Even before he saw the bedroom, as devastated as the room he'd left, he knew it was futile. The apartment felt dead, as if its soul had been destroyed along with the body. And the soul that dwelt here bore the name of Scully. Even though the icy fingers of certainty had gripped his heart, he still moved through each room carefully, still called her name.
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