Racing Against the Sun:
An Original "X-Files" Story
Sixteen-year-old Seth Newman had just made his last pizza delivery for the night and was headed home to his parent's home, a scant four miles away. Seth was proud of this job---he won it over six other teenagers and was determined to be the best delivery boy in his hometown of Bangor, Maine. Tall, thin and with a generous splash of freckles on his smiling face, Seth Newman felt, on that particular July night, that all was, indeed, right with the world. He paused at a red light and looked over at the passenger driving the sports car beside him. It was a pretty redheaded girl of abour eighteen, with her bountiful hair pulled back loosely and her smile easy and spontaneous.
Seth grinned and waved enthusiastically to the girl, who returned the gesture and then quickly sped off at top speed as the light turned green. Damn, she's long gone, the boy thought, somewhat crestfallen. Oh well, she's a bit too old for me anyway. Seth then continued on his way and was just about to turn down his suburban street when something in the sky drew him to immediate attention. "Oh my God!" Seth yelled out loud, pulling his father's car over to the curb in order to get a better look.
What Seth Newman saw was a sudden burning, red ball, which seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and hovered there, high above the ground, with small licks of fire curling around it like Shirley Temple's hair framing the former movie tot's cherubic face. What was it? The sun had long set and a full moon had been casting its beams over the land, producing a series of long, spidery shadows that belonged to the night. But this huge, red ball didn't belong to this night or any other, for that matter. The fiery object just stayed there, unmoving and giving off enough light to allow Seth to see the houses on his street almost as clearly as he could at high noon.
This is too weird for me, Seth said slowly to himself, unable to take his steady gaze from the fire in the sky. He wondered whether or not he should alert someone---the police, perhaps? What could they do? Seth needed to find an astronimer, but thought it unlikely at this hour of the night. After much deliberating and sweating, Seth decided to go home, get to bed and deal with this awesome phenomenon in the morning, when people who could identify the blazing ball were up and in their offices.
Suddenly, however, Seth saw, with horror, that a small fireball had somehow gotten itself detatched from the much larger one and was headed straight for him as he sat, transfixed, in the car. Before the boy had a chance to scream, the fiery piece of the mother ball had, with the speed of light, shot itself into the roof of the automobile, burning through it like a lit cigarette through tissue paper and then blasted into the terrified Seth. First, the boy's hair caught fire and then, as he screamed in agony, his clothing went up in flames as the little fireball engulfed the entire car from the inside out. In a matter of two minutes or less, Seth Newman had been burnt to cinders. Then, all was dark and quiet again.
* * * * * *
A very sleepy Mulder was rudely awakened at 5 AM with his obnoxiously shrill alarm clock. Shaking himself to at least a semblance of consciousness, he grabbed the clock and tossed it angrily across the room. Fortunately, the thing was made of rubber, so it merely bounced and then retained its hand grenade shape as it lay, silent at last, on the floor. Then Mulder remembered why he had planned on getting up before the birds: Agent Scully was going to be decorated with a special award for bravery. The ceremony was to take place in San Diego, California, so Mulder, Scully and Skinner were to board a plane at 6:30 that morning to get to the extravaganza by mid-afternoon. Fox Mulder was very proud of his partner for achieving this honour. Dana Scully had been instrumental in capturing a group of radicals who had fabricated a UFO abduction and had killed a young couple when they found out what the crooks were doing. Mulder had not been a part of that particular investigation, as Skinner had him hard at work on another project. Mulder felt no pangs of jealousy for Scully's honours----his affection for her far outweighed any sense of competition.
However, as it would turn out, the trio's plans would be drastically altered once news of the sad fate of Seth Newman hit the airwaves. Skinner had meant to get to Mulder and Scully before the proverbial crap hit the fan, but he had overslept himself and, unlike Mulder, had not heard his alarm go off at 5 AM. Mulder had just emerged, naked, from the shower when the phone began ringing. Picking up the receiver, he was surprised to hear Skinner's voice saying flatly, "Mulder. We're not going to San Diego. Something's come up and I'm pretty sure it's an X File."
Mulder strapped his watch onto his wrist and asked, with a mixture of curiosity and disappointment, "An X File? Are you sure? What's going on anyway?"
Skinner lowered his voice. "I don't want to discuss anything over the phone. Go get Agent Scully and meet me at my office in half an hour. Don't be late. Is that clear, Mulder?"
"Clear as mud," Mulder responded, thinking that something very big had to be afoot to cancel the San Diego trip. He pulled on his clothes, grabbed a bagal and coffee to eat on the way and headed over to Scully's place. Mulder knew that she would have been awake for the past two hours. She was terribly excited at receiving this award, although she didn't want either Mulder nor Skinner to know it. Her image had been carefully cultivated and she prided herself on seeming laconical and oh-so-calm in the face of crises. She fooled almost everyone, but not all.
Scully was all set to go when Mulder arrived. As she put the finishing touches on her make-up---Mulder always marvelled at how his partner could apply the stuff to her face and not look made up---Mulder began relating to her what Skinner had said, which, actually, wasn't much.
"So all Skinner told you was that he suspected this latest development as an X File?" Scully asked, raking a comb through her thick, red hair. "That's not much to go on. It must be pretty important, though, to give up our trip. Well, I'm all set---let's go find out what the mystery's all about."
When Mulder and Scully reached Skinner's office, they found their boss's face was ashen and his eyes cast downward. He motioned to the two agents to sit down while he proceeded to relate the details of the past night's horror, complete with graphic pictures of poor Seth Newman, or at least, what was left of the boy. "Agents Mulder and Scully, I just don't know what to make of all of this. From what I've been told and from what I can glean from these photos, a young boy was incinerated in his car last night. There was no sign of any catalysts---no gasoline or other combustable fluid, no matches, nothing. Yet Seth Newman was burnt to ashes in his car as it sat less than a block from his home."
Mulder was only half-kidding when he interjected, "Maybe it was spontaneous human combustion. They've got documented cases."
Scully frowned. "I'm not completely sure that I subscribe to the theory that something mysterious causes people to burst into flame. It's not particularly scientific. What else have you got for us?" Scully leaned back in her chair and folded her arms in front of her as if to shield herself from something unpleasant.
"It doesn't look like that," Skinner responded, staring intently at the gruesome pictures. "More like some sort of act of God. A meteor, perhaps. They can just appear out of nowhere and head straight for earth."
"Pardon me for saying so, but a meteor is hardly an X File. You were pretty certain this case was just that when you phoned me at home. Are you changing your mind, now?" Scully was becoming somewhat confused.
Skinner frowned, his brow a network of worry lines. "No, I guess I was just throwing out theories that could be logically explained. But that just isn't the case here. Something, whether it be human, sub-human or alien, killed that young kid and did it so quickly that I doubt he even knew what happened to him. What I want the two of you to do is stake out that particular suburb tonight and see if something similar happens. You're to wear heavily insulated suits and helmets so as not to end up like Seth Newman. I want pictures taken---I have a special camera that can take photos of extremely bright bursts of light."
"Do you think something really bright is going to flash across the sky tonight?" asked Mulder, his curiosity becoming aroused at the thought of coming head-to-head with a UFO.
"God, I hope so," Skinner replied, removing his glasses and wiping them with a handkerchief. "Otherwise we'll have to chalk it up to spontaneous human combustion and I don't want to leave it at that."
* * * * *
The next evening, Mulder and Scully, clad in heavy asbestos suits and helmets and armed with their infra-red camera, sat in Mulder's car in the same spot where Seth Newman had been. Scully looked over at her partner and remarked, "I don't know about you, Mulder, but I feel sort of silly. The sky has never looked more calm and serene. You can see every star in the solar system and, look---there's the big dipper. I think we're wasting our time here."
Mulder wasn't quite sure of that. "Scully, you know as well as I do that things are most definitely not what they may seem. If we've learned anything over the past eight years, it's to expect the unexpected. So just relax for now and feel good that we're currently not in the midst of a major crisis."
Suddenly, just as Mulder had finished speaking, the two of them spotted something tiny, red and apparently moving fast toward the earth. "What on earth is that?" Scully asked, getting the camera ready. "Come on, Mulder. Let's get out of the car and get a better look."
The agents did just that and were shocked to see that the small dot had grown bigger in an extremely short period of time and appeared to be framed with leaping flames. "Scully! Get a picture! Now! I'll try to follow its path---I think it's going to land over in that neighbourhood north of this spot!"
But before Mulder and Scully could do anything, the red ball had come so close that it looked like a round wall of crackling flame, bearing down on the two as they ran back toward their car for refuge. The angry fireball then plunged into the earth, a scant ten yards from the agents' car, burning brightly for a few moments, then turned to blackened ash. Relieved that they were not engulfed in fire, Mulder and Scully, safely back in the car, debated upon what to do next.
"I doubt very much if that was the last we'll see of our fiery meteors. I think I'll get out and examine the ashen hull to find out whether or not it is, indeed, just a meteor." Mulder approached the still smoking object and reached out his hand to touch it. Suddenly, a small, wiry hand, obviously webbed and inhuman, grabbed Mulder by the wrist and pulled him down so that he was eye-to-eye with a wisened-up creature with large, blackened eyes and a mouth the size of a nickel. Though it was obviously finding it difficult to speak, the creature told Mulder, in breathless, halting tones, "You should not have come here. That boy should not have come here either. We are sorry that he died. That was not our intention." The creature paused to catch its breath. "We live on the sun. Does that seem impossible to you? We have always lived there. It is our home. We need very high temperatures to survive. We---"
Mulder interrupted, finding it hard to believe what he was experiencing. "Wait a minute. Your people are the sundwellers? I've read about you. It's your race of aliens that keeps the sun from hurtling itself toward earth. Is that true?"
The alien nodded. "My name is Oren. I am but one of many sundwellers. You see, your sun---our home----is not firmly anchored in space. Therefore, it is up to my race to keep it where it is. If the sun were to come any closer to your earth, you'd all burn up and die horrible deaths." The alien, its body terribly undernourished but with skin like thick leather, motioned to the felled meteor. In the next moment, at least one hundred of the creatures emerged, walking slowly and awkwardly toward Mulder as the perplexed agent was frozen in his tracks.
He was soon joined by Scully, who had been taking pictures of the creature from outside the car and who wanted to find out everything there was to know about this mysterious visitation.
"Okay, but answer me this," Mulder responded, a hint of anger lacing his voice. "Why are you sending destructive meteors to earth to kill people? What has that got to do with keeping our sun in place?"
The alien, now joined by his comrades, managed a faint smile---or at least, what the agents took for a smile----and made a broad gesture with its scrawny arms. "Those are unfortunate accidents. As we fasten the sun in its orbit and haul it toward us when it tries to begin hurtling to your earth, some fiery pieces inadvertently break off and cause some destruction and death. We deeply regret that, but it is a matter of sacrificing the few so that the majority can keep living."
"That's not good enough," replied Mulder, wiping sweat from his brow. "No deaths are acceptable to us. We will not keep losing our fellow earth dwellers so that you can do something so bizarre that it can't possibly---"
"Ah, so you think I am making all of this up?" Oren shook his head slowly and frowned, causing the very thin skin on his forehead to buckle. "You don't believe that your planet is in constant danger of being engulfed----no, totally destroyed, by your powerful sun? Are you willing to believe that I am just talking nonsense to you? Okay, earthling. You just go on thinking that all is right and good with your solar system and that the sun, that most powerful of space objects, just manages to stay put all by itself. Are you willing to risk absolutely everyone on earth? If so, you people are more stupid and hopeless than any of us ever thought."
Scully had been listening intently to this exchange and felt it was time that she interjected her own feelings and opinions. "Okay, suppose we do believe what you are saying. How many more people here on earth will have to die by being hit with pieces of searing fire from the sun? Will this be an ongoing problem? And tell me, just how long have you been the "keeper of the sun" for us pathetic earthlings? There haven't been any other reports of meteor deaths anywhere, until this recent one."
Oren tossed his large head back and attempted a laugh. "Oh, we've been doing this for years. It doesn't take a lot of sacrifices, but the ones who have died by that means were officially listed as a phenomenon known as spontaneous human combustion. This may be a rare occurance on your planet, but on the sun, it happens all the time. We lose many members of our race, just so you can continue living and reaping the benefits of the sun's rays. So if you destroy us, you destroy yourselves."
"You mean that all those documented cases of people bursting into flame and dying are really your handiwork?" Mulder didn't know what to do. Should he and Scully believe this peculiar creature named Oren and just go on with their lives, or was the alien simply an intergalactic con artist whose objective was killing off members of the human race, one by one?
Mulder and Scully talked among themselves for the next few minutes, while the smug Oren pretended not to be listening in. "Mulder, we can't take the word of this alien," Scully whispered. "I've studied the sun extensively and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that extraterrestrials are the ones responsible for keeping it in its place. He's taking us for fools, Mulder and I don't think we should listen to him anymore."
"What do you suggest we do----arrest both Oren and all of his cronies back there? Scully, I have every reason to believe that these creatures are on the level. After all, just what do we really know about our solar system? Everything is speculation."
Scully shook her head in exasperation. "Mulder, sometimes you can be the most gullible person I've ever met. I say we take these---these alienes in for questioning. I'm assuming of course that bullets are fatal to them. Oren and his buddies will come peacefully at gunpoint."
"Scully, will you listen to yourself? You sound like a ruthless bounty hunter. I believe Oren and to prove it, I'm going to suggest that we just turn around and go back to FBI headquarters and write up a report. Are you with me on this?"
Scully's face was set in a grim line. "No, Mulder, this is one instance when I cannot and will not follow your lead. I'm taking Oren in right now and let Skinner question him. If you won't support me on this, then fine. I don't need your permission to take action which I believe to be appropriate and right. Have I made myself clear, Mulder?"
Mulder wasn't used to getting a glimpse of this side of Scully and he found it somewhat intruiging. Still, he strongly objected to her course of action and was just about to tell her so when Oren raised his voice and hollered angrily, "You earth people are the most ungrateful, selfish and suspicious race we've ever encountered in the entire solar system. Do you think you're the only highly evolved creatures that exist? Do you believe that you alone have a sun to keep you alive and that you alone are blessed with the curse of free will? Well, then, you are more pathetic than any of us had ever imagined. You! Step up here immediately!" Oren pointed harshly to Scully.
Scully obliged and when she was within arms reach of the blistering Oren, he took a weapon from a metal belt around his waist and aimed it directly at her head. "Are you afraid of me now?" Oren leered, behaving less like an alien and more like a human being whose back was firmly against the wall.
Scully stared evenly at her protagonist and replied flatly, "Well, you're the one with the ray gun, or whatever that is. Just what do you want from us? Just to go away, as my partner suggests and let you keep pelting people with fiery rocks for all eternity? Am I supposed to feel good about that? You're nothing but a miserable little man from Mars who only feels any sense of power and purpose when bullying others. So go ahead----shoot me if you must. It won't give you what you want."
Mulder, frightened for Scully's life, rushed forward and grasped her by her waist, pulling her away just as Oren fired his weapon. A hot bullet ripped into Mulder's shoulder and, though awash with pain, he managed to get himself and his partner to the safety of their car. But how safe was it really? After all, Seth Newman had died behind the wheel.
It appeared as though the enigmatic Oren had had enough with the two earth creatures. He retreated back into his space vehicle, along with all the other mysterious little alien beings. Scully felt that was the right thing to have happened, but the injured Mulder wasn't so sure. "Let me get you to a hospital and get that bullet out of your shoulder," she said, pressing hard on the wound to staunch the flow of blood. "Don't worry about any of this. Oren was bluffing, I know he was. He can't just go around killing innocent people under the false pretense that he's keeping the sun in place in our sky."
Mulder was too weak to argue, so he let his partner drive them both away from the subdivision and to the nearest emergency room.
* * * * * *
Two weeks had passed. Mulder and Scully had written up a report for Skinner and, though they'd labelled the events that had transpired as an X File, Scully wasn't sure. Were Oren and company really extraterrestrials, lording over our mighty sun, or simply misguided space travellers who'd turned homicidal from spending too many months in orbit? And what about the dangerous, flaming meteors? There had been no reports of them, or of any cases of spontaneous human combustion, since that fateful night that the two agents had encountered Oren and his people. That boded well. Now Mulder and Scully could relax. Mulder finally conceded that Scully had been right in this case.
Late that night, as most of the city, including Mulder and Scully, lay sleeping, a strange disturbance was occurring in the darkened atmosphere. Stars shone brightly as usual and there was a cresent moon overlooking the towns and fields. But what was that large, blazing object that appeared to be inching ever closer to earth? As its speed accellerated, the angry, giant fireball, a potentially destructive entity that would make the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem like childrens' firecrackers, hurtled closer and closer to earth, gaining more speed by the second and causing all skies to burst into a spectacular blaze of false daylight.
Nobody knew what hit them. It was all over in a matter of a few minutes. Up above an earth of blackened cinders, Oren and his followers shook their large heads, clucked their forked tongues while Oren proclaimed, "I guess they really wanted it that way. What a pity. Not much of a waste, though. That planet was long overdue being erradicated. Long, long overdue."
...End.
