This is it, it's over after this, there's no more, finito, fait accompli, alles zu Ende. For the last time - Chris Carter, most wonderful creator of the X Files, Fox Broadcasting, Ten Thirteen Productions: no copyright infringement is intended. As at the beginning, let me once again thank the following people for their help/advice/critiques/suggestions during the gestation and birth of this first full story: *** Melissa: you put up with literally tons of mail from me, and I will be forever in your debt. Thanks, twin! from the heart. *** Sophia: hey gal, it's time for you to get YOUR story in here now... ;). *** Blair: what can I say, but love ya and thanks for saving me from myself. *** And last but not least to SciNut: you're the reason we all get to read these stories and find out how creative the Philes really are. You do one heckuva job, and here's a rousing cheer for you! Hiphip - hooray! Hiphip - hooray! Hiphip - hooray! Whew. See y'all in the next story. ----------------------------------------------------------- Gulliver By Emily Brunson (SophieBrun) Chapter 25 The Escort gave up the ghost thirty minutes later. There was a clank, and something like a sigh of resignation, and the engine simply died. Mulder forced the car over to the shoulder, gasping as torn hands fought with a stubbornly frozen steering wheel. The Ford finally limped to a stop by the side of the road. An immediate gush of white vapor flooded up from under the hood. Mulder cradled one hand in the other. With a shuddering breath he opened the door of the dead car and got out. Nothing for it. Down the road, as fast as you can. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Gotta make it to Boardwalk. He didn't know whether his disconnected thoughts were a result of fear, or stress, or pain, or an incipient collapse. He couldn't spend the time wondering. He started walking. *** Fifteen minutes later he realized he was jogging. That fact was interesting enough on its own. What made it even more diverting was that he had absolutely no strength to continue. His heart was laboring in his chest, beating so hard he fully expected it to leap from his body in outright rebellion. His legs felt as if they were made of rubber. His stomach was getting in on the action, too: nausea was gathering strength, looming like a dark thunderhead on the horizon. He slowed to a walk, fighting to control the immediate surge of panic in his mind: hurry! She's in trouble! Hurry up! Gradually his breathing returned to something approaching normal. Legs stopped wobbling quite so badly. Thank God I jog. It was ten minutes later when the small sign appeared down the road. Private Property. Keep Out. Violators will be prosecuted. He sighed, a shuddering gasp of relief, and pressed the pace again. *** He found the car down the road, parked unobtrusively. A hundred yards further lay the silhouette of the hospital, mute and imposing. No Scully. It was so quiet. Nothing but dawn sounds: birdsong, leaves stirring in the freshening breeze. No one out. No one coming his way. No Scully. Fear reached out a familiar hand to clamp over his heart again. Where was she? Had she been captured? Had the men in his motel room caught up with her? Was she still inside? Questions rattled around in his head like peas in a tin can, and no more usefully. She could be hurt. She could be dead. Mustache Man may have - He cut off that line of thought brusquely. Nothing helpful there. He had to get inside, he had to look around - Noise, off to the right. Feet, crushing underbrush. Hurrying feet, stumbling feet. A sound like gasping. Mulder began pushing himself through the dense thicket planted to each side of the road. It was ahead of him, this sound. Whoever it was, they had had a head start, and he was going to have to push to make up for it. He forced his legs into a rubbery trot, hoping the brush wouldn't reach out to trip him. Once down, he seriously doubted he would get up again soon. The thicket parted, revealing barren, stony desert: the true lie of the land. He squinted in the bare rays of early sun. There. A figure, walking - stumbling - over the ground. He watched the figure stagger, struggle upright again. Continue their drunken shamble. A figure in a white coat. "Scully!" he shouted, all fatigue forgotten again. It was her, it had to be. What was she doing? Where was she going? She didn't turn at the sound of his voice. No, it looked as if she was hurrying even more. What the h - "Scully, wait! It's me! Mulder!" His voice sounded pinched, nasal with trepidation. He waited another second. Could she not hear him? He steeled himself for one last burst of energy. Then he took off, the same unsteady trot as before. Whatever else was going on, she wasn't making any better progress than he was. In point of fact, she seemed even worse off. Was she hurt? What had happened? He tried for more speed, feeling dry desert air sear into his tired lungs. The gap was narrowing. He could hear her breathing, as labored as his own. The lab coat was smeared with dirt where she'd stumbled and fallen; her hair was in wild disarray. But she wasn't stopping. "Scully," he called again, puffing wildly. No more air for talking. Catch up, catch up, you're running like your grandfather. He reached out and grabbed her arm. She froze in mid-step, and sent a wild, white-rimmed glance over her shoulder. And then she screamed, high and piercingly. ******************* Run. Run. She knew nothing but the running. The feel of feet pounding into dry, dusty earth, the loom of boulders waiting to trip her. The feel of wind in her face, cool on her hot cheeks. Run. Run, Dana. Run find him. He can help you. Pain in her side, making her stumble. Up, run. You must run. You have to get away. You have to find him. A titanic struggle to lift herself free of cradling, comfortable gravity. Run. Keep running. Get away. Where is he? Noise, new and galvanizing. A voice. A man's voice. Did he have a beard? The thought made her legs pump harder. Calling her name. No, no, no, not me, you don't want me, I'm running away, I'm getting away The jolt of hitting the ground again, painful scrabble of hands as she pushed herself up. The voice, calling her, it was frantic. Noooooo A hand, rough, grabbing her arm. She screamed, and screamed again. *********************** He could only stare at her for a precious second. He felt the tension in the arm he held, the muscles flexed frantically. That face - was this, could this be Scully? This - animal, terror- stricken wild animal? "Scully." He put every ounce of comfort, every last drop of calm he possesed into the word. "Scully, it's all right. It's Mulder. I'm here." The next cry cut off, as if she'd flipped a switch. Huge, blank eyes stared at him. He watched her mouth work, but no words emerged. "Scully, it's all right. You're okay. I'm here." He tried to smile through the fear that clawed at him. Some of the wildness left her face, leaving something that remotely resembled confusion. Confusion so vast as to be incapacitating. "Muh," she groaned thickly. "M - Mulder?" The word evaporated on a sigh of breath. "Yeah, Dana, it's me. Are you okay? What happened?" Her face worked, features seeming to flow together, a blend of terror and relief and confusion, and other emotions he couldn't even begin to identify. "Mu - Mulder," she murmured again. Tears filled her eyes suddenly, cutting glistening tracks through the dirt on her face. He couldn't stand it. He pulled her close, gathering her into his arms. She held herself stiffly for a moment, and then without transition she was weeping, harsh, tearing sobs. A kind of crying he'd only seen her allow once before. And as before, he simply held her, tightly, letting her weep. After a moment he found himself smiling weakly. "We're quite a pair, aren't we?" he murmured into her dusty hair. He didn't think she heard him, but it really didn't matter. "We just do the FBI proud." Epilogue Protective Systems Field report: Fox Mulder, agent of record Although this investigation was not sanctioned by the FBI, I will proceed with this report in the hopes that at some later point, our superiors will see the necessity of pursuing this research. Following Agent Scully's infiltration of the Los Alamos medical facility, the hospital was apparently closed. Two days after the incidents of [check dates], we returned to the site, only to find it empty and abandoned. I can only speculate as to the amount of manpower and resources it required to completely obliterate a facility of this scope; I have no doubt that military and government personnel were involved. Agent Scully remembers little of her visit to the facility prior to its closure. She retrieved several files, but these were lost. What files we were able to find in Rosemont are fascinating, but ultimately inconclusive. I maintain the belief that Rosemont, SC, was the site of an unsanctioned military weapons experiment. My primary sources for this information are unfortunately no longer available: both Miguel and Jamie Picon were killed in a fire at their home four days ago, and Llano Computers in Lubbock, TX, was closed the same day. Inquiries into the whereabouts of Ralph Cantey and ___ Howard have been fruitless. I can find no record of a Dr. Jocelyn Arrington in any governmental or military installation. Nanotechnology is certainly the wave of the future for manufacturing and medicine. But after the events of the past two weeks, I am certain that we are nowhere near the kind of knowledge required to make nano a reality. The fact that someone did, indicates to me some kind of outside help. Whether that assistance came from extraterrestrial sources is impossible to say with certainty. This case, file #4599872, is still open. Status: unexplained. *** The door opened, and he glanced up alertly. "Scully?" he asked, surprised. "What are you doing here? I thought you would take a couple of days off." Scully raised an eyebrow at him. "I could say the same to you," she retorted mildly, shucking her damp trenchcoat. She hung the coat up carefully, and turned back to him with a smile. "You're the one with the cracked ribs and the shiner that could light up half of Georgetown. You should be in bed." He shrugged, and winced involuntarily. "Aspirin," he remarked dryly. "FBI wonder drug." She wandered over to her desk, picking up a stack of files. "Did you finish the report for Skinner?" she asked, her tone elaborately casual. "I think so. Unless there's something you'd like to add." Her expression was calm, completely unreadable. "No. Nothing that I haven't already told you." "Scully -" "Mulder, let me just say it before you do." She slung herself wearily into her chair, and regarded him steadily. "I had some wierd experiences on this case, I know," she continued, in the same, utterly calm voice. "But Mulder, I don't remember anything. Maybe there was something there, once, but it's gone. I can't remember it. Whatever it was." Mulder nodded slowly. "They erased it," he murmured. "Just like the Budahas case, my own amnesia. You were remembering too much, and they took -" "Mulder, how can you be so sure? How do you know that what happened to me wasn't caused by simple stress? Those people -" She broke off, looking faintly greenish. "It was horrible," she added in a strangled whisper. "But the dreams, Scully," he pursued. "You saw things in your dreams. Images. People." "Yes," she conceded. She sighed. "But I don't have any way of knowing those weren't simple free-association. It's not enough to form any kind of hypothesis, Mulder, and I think you know that." He leaned back in his chair. "And my finding you running away in the desert?" he countered evenly. "You don't find that strange?" "Of course. But Mulder, all I remember is needing to get away. The memory of those people, that place - " She broke off uncertainly. "I got lost," she added, glancing away. "They must have come after me, and I missed the car, and ran out into the desert." "Scully, you were running from me." Mulder shook his head, brow furrowed in exasperation. "Me, Scully. Why would you run? I was coming to help you." She paused, and shook her head. "I don't know," she whispered, still avoiding his gaze. He nodded. "Okay. I can't force you to see something you don't want to see, Scully. But I hope -" His trailing voice made her look up. "What?" she prodded. "Nothing." His tone was flat, expressionless. "So what do you think they did with Laura Foster and the other survivors?" Scully seemed to shake herself, blinking rapidly. "I don't know," she said honestly. "Moved them. Took them to another facility." "Were they curable?" "I doubt it. The memo I found seemed to suggest this was a permanent condition." "Human machines," Mulder murmured slowly. "Makes you wonder what other goodies the army is cooking up. What's next?" Her eyes were wide. "At least Zach is okay," she said staunchly. "I called the Dayton PD this morning; his aunt picked him up the day after we left." "Good." She looked at him, and then down at the handful of forgotten folders she held. *** Mulder unlocked his door and swung it open. "Agent Mulder." The voice of Mr. X. He turned around, and faced him. "Come to say I told you so?" Mulder asked dryly. The dark-skinned man was implacable. "Your actions in this case will have distinct ramifications," he remarked coolly. "You have now earned the attention of some people best avoided at all costs. Forget Rosemont, Agent Mulder. Concentrate your efforts elsewhere." "Why?" he countered heatedly. "Because you don't like it? Or because I might finally learn what happened to Scully?" There was no emotion on X's face. "I can't speak to what happened to Agent Scully," he said remotely. "Whether or not she remembers is irrelevant. What matters is that you have enemies, Mulder. Deadly ones." Mulder nodded. "The men in my motel room," he said quickly. An exasperated headshake. "Cogs in a machine. A machine you have only recently begun to suspect even exists." "Tell me." "You think this is personal, Mulder. But there are much larger issues at stake here. You represent something greater than you realize. The truth is not something everyone wants exposed. I urge you to consider why that would be so." Mulder cocked his head to one side. "I have theories," he admitted. "Consider the confirmation of exterrestrial intelligence. What reaction would the public have to such knowledge? Glee? Enthusiasm?" The smile on X's lips was bitter. "Hardly," he answered himself. "Many, many things we have taken for granted would change. The formation of a world government, united against the possibility of outside threat. The balance of power would shift. Many of those people currently in positions of authority would find themselves out in the cold. "How do you think those people would respond to such an eventuality?" "They would resist it," Mulder whispered. "They would fight against it?" A curt nod. "Bringing every resource at their command into play in the bargain," X added. "And those resources are vast, Agent Mulder. Vast indeed." "And you? What role do you play?" "I've said enough," X replied tersely. "Mark my words, Mulder, and mark them well. Your friends are far outnumbered by your enemies. Your actions during the investigation of this case have drawn attention you can ill afford. Consider your own safety, and that of your partner, before you attempt any further action." He spun on his heel crisply, and was halfway down the corridor before Mulder found his voice again. "I can't let them win. There is more to this than political maneuvering." X paused. "Perhaps," came the reply over his shoulder. "But will they allow you to pursue it?" **************** It was early morning. He always got up early, earlier than anyone else. The air was different in the morning: cleaner, clearer. No one else had ever quite understood his fascination with mornings, but then again, they'd really never understood much about him at all, had they? He reached out to stroke Rhoda's velvety nose. The pony nickered at him, smelling the apple he'd stashed in his pocket. "Greedy guy," he whispered, smiling happily. "You get dessert before breakfast today." He pulled out the apple, and offered it to the pony. She lipped at it, and then long, yellowing teeth picked it up daintily. He smiled at her, and got up to make his way back through the barn. With an economy that was completely natural, he grabbed two large tin buckets and scooped oats out of a huge bin, distributing the grain between the animals. Animals - he'd always been drawn to them. Horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, even the squirrels that hung around his old house. His mother could never keep him from taking in strays, hurt little beasts that had no chance in the real world. At times it seemed he had more in common with them than with his family. The thought of family didn't seem to hurt as much as it had, before. Aunt Polly was okay. Not as great as his dad - she didn't know the first thing about baseball, or hockey - but she shared his love of animals, and that made her all right. As if his thought had called out to her, he heard her voice now. "Zachary? Breakfast. Move it, buddy, it's getting cold." Warm, that voice, not strict like some. The others - they had been strict. Cold, as if they were afraid of him. Afraid of why he was different, why he didn't die like so many of the rest, like his father and his sis - Zach frowned prodigiously. Thinking about the dying was hard. He hadn't wanted them to die. Hadn't known they would die. He knew it was hard, the becoming. It made so many of them look funny, feel funny. Made some of them - different. In their heads. But he hadn't known it would kill some of them. And the scared men hadn't known either. Their fear was what had made his escape possible. They had been too busy to pay much attention to one boy. There had been one who wasn't afraid. Dana, with the sweet voice and the perfume that made him think of his mother. The man had been afraid, but not her. He wished now, remotely, that he could have been more honest with her. She had taken care of him, trusted him, and he had lied to her. Well, she wasn't part of the becoming. Neither was the man, though Zach had thought for a moment he might be. It hadn't taken, though; sometimes it didn't, and there was no reasoning why. Maybe they didn't like him. Maybe he tasted bad. For whatever reason, they weren't meant to be a part of things, and that had meant he had to tell fibs. They weren't really lies, not big ones, anyway. After all, they'd never asked him why he was alive. What had happened to him. Not really, in so many words. So it was just a fib. "Zachary Foster, your breakfast is cold and you have school." He sighed, and slung the last of the oats into Jerry the goat's trough. Then he paused, noticing the mess. Jerry was always chewing up things; Aunt Polly said it was just a goat thing to do. But this time he'd just about destroyed the halter he'd been wearing the night before. There were bits strewn all over the hallway in front of his stall. Zach hated messes. He liked tidiness; it was something his mother had always admired. "You're the cleanest little kid I've ever seen," she would say, after admiring his room, or how he'd neatened up his closet. "Who's are you anyway? How'd I get so lucky?" And she'd run her hand over his head, messing his hair; he'd always had to go brush it after. This was definitely a mess, and even though breakfast was waiting (and Zach didn't think it was cold; he knew Aunt Polly would keep it in the oven until he came it), he couldn't leave things this way. He gave the tin buckets he held an irritated glance. Oh, well, it was time to practice, anyway. He had to keep working on it, or the same thing that had happened to - the others - would happen to him. Zach narrowed his eyes, and concentrated. This was the hard part: keeping everything else under control while letting them do what you wanted them to do. They hated the control; they wanted to run wild, and if you weren't careful, really, really careful, they'd do just that. Presently he saw the nubbin of flesh starting from his shoulder. Still so red; he wished he could turn it another color. That red part was really the worst. It was another thing that reminded him of what had happened at home. It grew faster this time. He smiled jubilantly. He did have more control now; the first few times he'd tried it it had been sometimes an hour or more before he could form any useful tool. But now, in only a minute or so, he had what he needed. The new arm was spindly, weak-looking, but Zach knew it was surprisingly, amazingly strong. The machines made sure it was. He didn't understand it completely; he'd heard the scientists talking about something like smart matter and molecular building blocks, but that didn't make much sense then, and it still didn't. It didn't matter. It did the trick, and you could practically pick up a car with this arm. Zach scooped up the fragments of chewed rope, and tucked them into his pocket to be thrown away. A moment's thought, and the thin, bloodred arm shrank back, disappearing once again into normal, healthy flesh. he thought to himself happily. Zach whistled as he put the buckets away, and hurried back to the house. He was hungry, and he smelled Aunt Polly's good breakfast waiting. THE END Note: I have adapted the mostly theoretical science of nanotechnology to fit the needs of this story. The jury's gonna be out for some time to come on nano, and there is no saying with certainty that any such calamitous situation as the Rosemont massacre could happen. As with any technology, there is the potential for abuse. But this is definitely the wave of the future, and this sort of technology is featured in many current science fiction novels and stories. If you are interested in finding out more about nanotechnology, there are several resources that I found most helpful. There's an archive called "nanofaq" in the Omni section on AOL; keyword OMNI. K. Eric Drexler at Stanford is the "guru" of nano; he has written several books which are quite entertaining and informative. Look for "Engines of Creation" (Anchor, 1986) and "Unbounding the Future" (Morrow, 1991) for a glimpse of the vast potential of nanotechnology. And if you want, you can snail the Foresight Institute for more information: The Foresight Institute, Department U P.O. Box 61058 Palo Alto, CA 94306 USA