MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH04: GETTING PHYSICAL DATE: 10/18/00 AUTHOR: Sue Esty CONTACT: Windsinger@AOL.com RATING: PG CLASSIFICATION: XA series SPOILERS: REQUIEM, 7th season. KEYWORDS: Mulderangst SUMMARY: Having somehow survived the first terrible moments on the ship and his first days (at least the ones he's been conscious enough to remember), Mulder has become bored with the routine. Time to liven things up. Time for a little first hand knowledge with The Tests. ARCHIVING: Gossamer, Emphereal, ATXC, and anywhere with permission and as long as the author's name is retained. DISCLAIMER: Where do I start? No, the X-Files and the characters of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully do not belong to me. Chris and David, thank you, thank you for giving us a great season finale and subjecting us to at least a Mulder-light Eighth Season. Better than no Mulder. Author's Notes: This is fourth in a series of short stories chronically Mulder's confusing, agonizing, torturous, lonely and wondrous adventures with the 'Grays'. An 'All Hallow's Eve' chapter will come out next and will be... quite... different. My older work can be found on Gossamer under 'Esty, Sue' with the newer pieces at http://members.aol.com/windsinger. MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH04: GETTING PHYSICAL (1/2) Morning, Scully. Note that there's nothing 'good' about it. Nothing out-of-the-ordinary either, so being at loose ends for anything to talk about I'll start with an observation. I've come to the conclusion that I really have lived a very selfish life. Oh, I've given my heart and soul and my blood to the job, and I've done my share of sympathizing with the victims -- too much you would say -- but in the end I've always been able to walk away. For so many years my eyes have been focused ever ahead, seeking my own answers: to what happened to Samantha, for the reason for your abduction, for why my father was killed. This place and these people, however, I can't leave behind. For the last three 'nights' I've lain next to Roy and held him as he convulsed and did my best to keep him warm. I told you about the limited (i.e. non-existent) medical facilities in my last virtual journal entry. Without warning he'd been taken for Testing and without warning he was returned. I could see in his eyes how scared he was whenever he felt another seizure building. I know how terrible that loss of control can be. The humiliation, the helplessness. There isn't much that can help, but if it brought him any comfort then I would stay. This is what family is for, isn't it, Scully? When I was growing up, I never knew what it was like not to be so alone all the time. Families were something you lost, or if you didn't lose them, they disappointed you. For years after Sam disappeared I could have used a hand holding mine in the dark. Now I have a family or something like one. Ironic, I'm the disappointment now, the broken and damaged one, and yet they are willing to still treat me as one of their own. When I come back to you -- and I do mean 'when' -- I'm going to be a better person for this. Dare I softly say, better husband material? Maybe even 'father' material? I know that's a problem, but we can adopt. I wouldn't mind. After what I've been through my sperm are probably swimming in circles anyway. You would make a terrific mother. That's what I thought about all those hours as Roy shivered and sweated next to me -- that this was what it must feel like to be a father sitting up with a sick child. Only, to be the father, the child's pain would be even more my own. You seem surprised that I would find this revelation so surprising. You lay dying within reach of my hand twice and it hurt so much inside that I nearly died along with you. The difference is that, feeling as I do towards you, I didn't think I could have anything left for another human being. I seem to have been wrong about that. When I'm not on Roy-watching duty, I exercise in an attempt to rebuild my strength. I must be ready. Unlikely as it may seem, an opportunity to escape may present itself at any time. Look at all those escaped convict movies. More often than not, the prison bus has an accident. Maybe this ship will crash. No, maybe that's not such a great idea after all. In any case, I exercise. I like swimming and running best, as you know, and I can't do either in the Stockhome yard. Just not enough room and too crowded for running and a distinct lack of water. It's calisthenics then, which I loath, but I've built up a little mantra of my own to keep me going that I repeat over and over in my head. The tune is to the Bridge on the River Kwai and the words are pretty scandalous even for me. Too bad I haven't had a chance to get really bored with it yet. That's because I haven't been able to build up to more than ten pushups before my arms give out. It's a pretty pitiful sight and I seem to be losing even more weight as a result of my exertions. I wouldn't mind so much if I seemed to be building up any muscle. To make the situation even worse, I'm beginning to smell rather rank. I asked Billy about showers and changes of clothes, but he just looked at me as if I had three heads. The fourth 'day' after Rob's return while I am sweating over my tenth set of sit ups since our breakfast of glag, the buzzer announcing the opening of the main door went off. As it's not time for either breakfast or dinner, I look up with some apprehension. It could be visiting time for the women -- that makes it sound like more goes on than actually does -- but more likely this is a signal that one of our group is going to be taken. No one is getting up to leave, however. Instead, everyone is looking at me. It still unnerves me that even though this group practices telepathy with a vocabulary of about ten words, they are still able to communicate far better with each other than I can with any of them. I'm going to take it as a given that I've finally been called. I get to my bare feet. My legs are more shaky than I would like to admit -- Jell-o Jigglers have more substance -- but the empty doorway beckons. It closes with a hiss of air behind me. The light in the corridor beyond is blinding. I stand blinking for several seconds. I had forgotten how dim they keep our quarters. I'm still squinting when I see my escort. I don't know why it should surprise me, but it's one of the little Grays. Its smooth round head with its malevolent almond eyes comes up to about my sternum. In the flesh they certainly are more sinister than Spielberg depicted them. Soundlessly, it turns and heads off down the white corridor to my left. Having nothing better to do, I follow. I don't know why I should have been surprised but I am. It's taken me to the sanitation room, to the showers. I grasp at a thought: Perhaps they don't intend to test me this time after all. Maybe it's just that my stink offends them. That's a victory of sorts. In any case, I can't shed my rank clothes fast enough. Fleetingly, I wonder if the little Gray is male or female. My striptease doesn't seem to affect it one way or the other. It's with gratitude that I dump my reeking gray fatigues down a chute and watch them disappear into the bowels of the ship. I only saw the disrobing room once before and that from a distance when I was first taken up into the ship. That was just before my 'accident', not something I'm likely to forget. The only time I was actually under the showers, I was blind from the acceleration injuries to my eyes and being washed of blood and gore by my fellow abductees while Death and I played tag. This time I'm on my own two feet. Even as I slide under the showerhead, I stare curiously around. It's only a shower room, the kind they have at the older 'Y's and Boy Scout camps -- one big room and a dozen or so showerheads placed at regular intervals. Still, for me it's the first new thing I've seen in weeks. The mildly acidic fluid that comes out of the taps is warmer than I remember and there is less of it, but it doesn't sting. Not having any open wounds this time probably has something to do with that. Still, it is as near to heaven as I've found yet on this budget airline and I take my time. As I slide the hard bar of brown soap over my skin, I try to ignore the feel of my own bones under my hands. I spy the almost mirror-like shininess of a stainless steel tank that stands in the corner and side over to access the damage. Should have known better. The comparison to World War II concentration camps comes back as it did once before in this place, only I'm a survivor this time... if you want to call this survival. Protruding hip bones, ribs like a xylophone, arms and legs like a bundle of long, brittle sticks. You would be shocked, Scully. My face... No, you don't want to know what my face looks like. All nose and jaw, cheekbones and hallow eyes. None of the other times when you have fussed over my having lost weight has been anywhere near as bad as this. I could use you fussing now as well as a few dozen Big Macs. Hastily, I retreat back to my dripping showerhead. I must concentrate on this opportunity to get clean. I wash my hair with the same course soap and even wrestle with the fuzz between my toes. Who knows when I'm going to get a chance again? Going barefoot all the time, the bottoms of my feet look and feel like leather. It's a while before I'm again aware of my guide, or it could be any of the Grays. It's standing in the doorway looking very anxious as if it's the one who'll pay for my taking so long. The problem is, there's no towel, nor any clean clothes. Even my old ones would have been better than nothing, but they're long gone, and so I make it plain that I'm going to stay planted where I am until I get some service. My escort, meanwhile, is still standing and waiting and doesn't seem to have any idea that something is missing in this scenario. Finally, I peer at him from around what functions as a shower stall and shout, "Hey, I could use some clothes here!" and gesture pulling on pants. If it understands, it ignores me and makes nervous little motions like a certain tardy white rabbit with a pocket watch. For quite a while I stubbornly refuse to follow it while it stubbornly refuses to agree to my demands. Finally, it gives a very good impression of stalking off in a snit. And people say that the Grays have no emotions. Ten minutes later, during which time I've completed my examination of every inch of the dressing and shower rooms, I have a visitor. Charley Hunter. As usual, he seems twice as large and twice as real as everything and everyone else I've encountered in this place. "I expected you five minutes ago." "I have other duties besides watching over you. You should have followed the -" He says some word that sounds like ">Denay<" only that can't be right. "If you mean the little bell-hop, not naked I won't." "That hardly matters here." There's some truth in that. Neither the Grays nor their elders of the tall and spindly physique wear anything that looks like a garment, though with the glare from the brilliant light the elders always seem to be bathed in, one can't be certain. Still... "It matters to me. Besides, I don't see your inhuman flesh gracing the decor." The Hunter makes no answer to that other than to toss a bundle at my feet. The jumble of gray cloth lands in a damp spot, but with relief I retrieve them and dress anyhow. My ego has been bruised quite enough by how badly my manly physique has deteriorated since I was abducted. I don't need to provide Hunter or any of his kind with any more of a show than I have to. But Hunter did come at my call. Another point for the home team. The long, loose draw-string pants and even looser short-sleeve shirt are exactly like my old ones, but at least they don't smell like a inside of a high school student's gym locker. I'm finally as ready as I'm going to get. While I dressed, I kept an eye on Charley. He has waited for me with what for him is the utmost patience. This makes me suspicious. Hell, everything about the 'man' makes me suspicious. Seeing I'm finished, he starts back down the brightly-lit corridor I had traveled with the little Gray. Seeing no other escort, I fall along beside him. I should keep silent and make him do the talking, but living with the zombies as I have, I'm so starved for conversation that I have to say something. "No lecture?" I ask. "No complaints about my incorrigibility." "What would be the point," he drawls. It is not a question. "Aren't you going to ask if it will hurt?" I don't like the direction this conversation is going. "I believe I already know the answer to that one." His smile broadens. Lucifer must smile like that. We arrive at a doorway. He activates it somehow and the panel slides open. He gestures me inside with almost languid courtesy. It's even brighter in this room than the hallway though the air is thick with a dense, white fog. That's all I can see. Another decontamination procedure? Poor aliens. They really must find the human animal a dirty lot. I step into the mist. It's damp and surprisingly warm. It tickles my nose like vinegar. Like a small child facing his first jump into the family pool, I take a deep breath and hold it. I would take things slower, but Charley is on my heels so I keep walking. Besides, I don't dare slow down because the only alternative is to turn and run and that I won't do. I have the honor of an entire species to uphold, after all, and I can feel its weight heavy on my bony shoulders. The mist thins as suddenly as it appeared and between one second and the next I am bombarded with two sensations. Either alone could have stopped me dead where I stood. The light is suddenly, not just bright, but piercing, as painful as thousands of tiny razor-sharp knives that attack not just my eyes, but every inch of my skin. And I can't breathe. There is no air. Or perhaps I should say that my lungs refuse to take it in. The foul stuff is instantly in my mouth, in my nose, invading deep into my sinuses. Tears of protest roll down my cheeks. Its taste even beats against my eardrums as if pounding vainly against a barred door. Pervasive as a cesspool and acrid as a foundry, it's pure poison, metal laced with a reeking level of ammonia. I'm on the floor, doubly blinded by tears and light. The pain and fear are so terrible I have no memory of how I got down here. I haven't actually breathed in the vile stuff yet, and I don't intend to, but I'm rapidly running out of options. I run and I swim -- or I did, enough so my lungs are good -- still, I can't hold my breath indefinitely. The Hunter is at my side. I can't see him, but I can sense him and how utterly calm he is about his pet writhing on the floor at his feet. Something attacks, and only after I jerk away do I realize that he's sprayed something onto my face. The bad part is that I feel like my skin has just been shrink-wrapped with a fine coating of plastic or wax, the good part is that the membranes around my eyes, nostrils and mouth don't burn as much anymore. I'm still going to die sometime soon though. Now he cups the back of my head with one hand and, despite my struggles, stuffs a huge wad of something soft and squishy and vile into my mouth with the other. "Breathe!" he orders. "Breathe deeply!" The hell I will! With this junk in my mouth! Even now I can feel it softening, spreading out, creeping up the back of my throat as if it has a will of its own. I start to gag, but he clamps a heavy hand over my mouth so I can't eject the stuff. "Breathe!" he commands again. "In with it, you fool!" I don't have much choice. Damn, traitorous, autonomic reflexes! Despite the distraction of the searing light, it's all going dark. I open my throat in a strangled gasp and the gunk slides in and in and in. Now there is nothing coming in no matter how hard I struggle. I'm choking to death. As for the Hunter, he's still got a heavy hand on my forehead and is holding me down so I won't dash my skull to pieces against the floor, which I surely would have. "Give it a few seconds," he suggests, "just a few seconds. Then try again, only more slowly." Yeah, sure, let's see the bastard try it, but surprisingly the gunky tightness of the obstruction, which feels like the largest clot of mucus of all time, begins expanding in my windpipe. (I would have used another word, which begins with 'SN' and ends with a 'T', but the very idea disgusted even me.) It's still like breathing through a soda straw, but it's breathing. I'm managing to control my own panic now -- just barely, but managing -- so Hunter doesn't need to hold me down any more. Still he hovers. "Very good, little Mooncalf." He runs his hand over my forehead and down into my hair. I want to bite it but he stays out of range of my teeth. "Yes, very sensible. The 'k'nikk' forms a barrier against the poisons. Your people refer to it as the 'slug'. I'm sure you can understand why." I think I would like to throw up now. I'm distracted from further mortification along these lines by his hand that is still hovering, shadowing my face. "Open your eyes. Go ahead. This will help. Wider." Something like a the moon eclipsing the sun plops into my momentarily open right eye. Precious dark descends, or at least shade. "Again," he orders, and I do, and my left eye gets the same treatment. Obviously it's something like a large, nearly black contact lens. I lay still blinking and wheezing. Both seeing and breathing are becoming easier, but with agonizing slowness. The brightness of the room could still be compared to the full sun of winter reflecting off a mile-high snowfield, and the tightness in my chest is like an octopus has decided to hibernate in my lungs -- yeah, I know, I've been there, done that before -- but both are better than they were. "You b-breathe this stuff?" I choke, meaning the air, not the slug. I didn't see Hunter sucking down any of the repulsive gunk. "Why should that surprise you? In your blood is mirrored the sea in which you were spawned and which hangs in the air and falls as rain. In our blood is reflected our sea and our sky." Lightly, he touches the area under my left eyes and then my upper lip, both of which are raw. "You were exposed to our blood before, even mine as I remember. You're one of the few living who knows what happens when it mingles with your air. So you know, the same would happen if you swam unprotected in our seas or walked bareheaded under our sun." There is something else about his planet I can deduce from all this, otherwise, why the need to colonize on a world as clearly inhospitable to them as ours obviously is. "You don't by any chance have a fierce white star for a sun that is burning itself out too soon?" I don't think Charley wants to answer. From behind, he puts his hands under my armpits and raises me to my feet, as easily as another man would lift a child. Dizzy, I sway and nearly go down, but he catches me. When I try to break his hold, he only laughs and propels my bag of bones up onto... of course... an examining table. It couldn't be anything else in this place, only this one is more elaborate than any I've seen. There's a special platform for each limb and it seems infinitely adjustable to any size and shape. They must have already known my size because the length is right in all the right places. Charley and three heretofore-unseen pairs of pale, dry, long-fingered hands come out of the light beyond my field of vision and tighten things down with depressing efficiency. Soon there are straps across calves, thighs, hips, arms, wrists, shoulders, torso and head. The straps need to be pulled tighter than I think even they expected. There was no time to fight before and useless after as a half- hearted test of their effectiveness demonstrates. "This isn't necessary," I growl. "Yes, I can see that." Charley seems mildly surprised that I'm taking this all so calmly, but that emotion is quickly replaced by one that is closer to his normally saturnine self. "Let's just say that we wouldn't want you hurt yourself. If you stumbled around in here, you could run into something sharp." This is probably a true statement. The room, which I can still barely see for the glare, does seem to be just stacked to the ceiling with hard, shining edges. In truth, I'm also not taking the restraints and their hands on my body all that well. I've just learned that it's usually best not to let on to what really bothers you, however, or they'll just do whatever it is with renewed determination. The tall, thin creatures are milling about now, poking and prodding, and the chair swivels and dips and opens and closes in every possible configuration so that my body's in just the right position for whatever they need access to, which is just about everything. Despite the fact that what flesh I have wants to crawl right of my bones when they touch me, the examination is almost warmly reminiscent of my usual trips to the emergency room -- everyone wants a piece of the pie. The big difference is I try not to look at my 'doctors' this time. Oddly, it's actually better than most of my experiences with ER's. At least I don't have anything broken or shot to hell to start with. Whoever performs the spinal tap doesn't even do a half-bad job. I've had worse performed by the med students of George Washington University on a Saturday night. They stick sharp objects in about ten veins, something cold into my mouth and another cold something way down in my ears. I won't tell you want they push up my nose. They pinch or prick about three dozen sites to check my reflexes. In response, the chair loosens the proper restraint, but never enough to allow any chance of escape. Where would one escape to anyway? Next, they shine little portable suns into my eyes -- to see the back of my eyeballs, I assume -- and even the nearly black contacts can't lessen the excruciating pain. It's worse because I can't move my head more than a centimeter in any direction during this process, but it's quickly over. Now comes the really bad part. The chair tilts back, really far back, and they strip off my pants and start spelunking into orifices they have not right to. I lost my shirt so fast at the beginning that I don't remember when it went, so I'm naked and cold and helpless, every inch of me exposed to wandering fingers and prying eyes. I could have put up a fuss. I could have screamed and swore and foamed at the mouth, but there would not have been much use to that. Within easy reach of half a dozen long-fingered hands, I see hanging what can only be a muzzle of human-size and the Hunter is in the room waiting for me to disgrace myself. I won't give him the pleasure. This is when I realize that what they are doing down in my nether regions is no longer painful. Not painful at all. Damn it. Within a minute or so, it's obvious that I'm not the least cold any more either. What I'm doing is blushing 'six ways to Sunday' as my old aunt might have said, if I had had an old aunt. "Not in the contract..." I murmur to that pervert Charley between clenched teeth, clenched because my body is vibrating, thrumming like a plucked string that goes on and on, higher and higher. "Almost there," says a soft voice. "They just need a sample." Where in the hell did that voice come from? It sounds... No, it couldn't be. But it is a woman's voice. A human woman. I want to find that voice, I have to... but, before I can start, the maestro working down below turns up the gain. Not a lot, just a notch. Enough to make me lose all point of reference and go soaring somewhere into the stratosphere. What part of my ego I still can connect with is much miffed that I'm responding far better now than to any of the times that I've tried this on my own since my abduction. Then I remember that I don't have to expend any energy this time and the unexpected is always better. I'm also being treated to heaven from two directions -- inside and out -- and, though I was pretty pissed at the getting inside part, it's all perfectly placed now and, perfectly, perfectly timed. I want to come and then I don't ever want to. It's flowers and colors and bliss and passion and wonder and heaven and the other place. How are they able to do this? Hell, I guess I should be surprised if they couldn't. They've had decades of practice at finding ways to get their pets to do exactly what they want. I can think of being asked to perform worse tricks. Did I just say what I thought I said... or thought ... or whatever? Nothing's staying around long in my head. Very quickly I'm back to rolling in animal perfection. Still, a part of me is fighting this orgy of sensation. It's really not fair of them to make me feel so good when all I want to do is keep on hating them... and hating them... and hating them. I'm just making progress towards building a reasonable level of resistance when something truly astonishing sweeps away my shaky walls. It's the voice again. "Mulder, it's all right. Mulder?" My name, oh God, my name. Not that Mooncalf crap, but my name. Even better, this time the voice is yours, has to be yours. I can't help it, I know it's a trick, but I open my eyes to look for you... and there you are. A disembodied face, but your face, so sad and yet so full of love... Oh... my... God... I lose it. Lose the whole thing. I've reached Everest and there's no place else to go but the moon, so I go there, too and the arc is high and full and glorious and -- yes, it does hang in there a full ten second past peak -- the bastards - - but that can be considered either heaven or hell, depending on the way you look at it. Eventually, the coming down is almost as good as the going up. My eyes fill with tears -- of grief or joy I don't know -- but it takes a while for me to be able to see again. You're gone, of course, if you were ever there at all. Did they project your image on my contact lenses or what? I don't care. It was you and clearer than even a memory like mine has been able to come up with since the Baltimore airport where we said good-bye. Do you think I didn't see your red-rimmed eyes? Had you slept at all? I meant to show up, I really did, but the night got later and later and the Gunman kept coming up with this and that gadget. Soon they and Skinner were hipdeep in a whole arsenal of clandestine military toys and I couldn't just leave. I should have though. I should have said the hell with them and appearances. I should have spent that last night with you. Yes, you begged me to, not with words, but with your eyes. How was I to know that it was going to be the last night, the last night for a long, long time. The last night forever? No, I won't think about that. I'll think about this gift of your face and not worry about how it happened. It takes time for me to realize that the restraints are all gone and that I'm curled up uncomfortably in a ball on the alien table with something like a blanket over me. I think I actually slept for a little while. A few minutes at least. The afterglow is ruined, however, because the first face I see when I poke my head out from under the blanket is Charley's. If I didn't like his smirky little smile before, I loathe it now. "Have a nice nap?" That doesn't really require a response and I don't give him one. He doesn't seem to care. "Time for Phase Two," he announces as he tosses me what from the pattern of wrinkles can only be the prison duds that I wore for barely ten minutes. I slip a little shakily off the examination table and dress with my back to him. "And what can I expect from Phase Two?" "I think you'll be pleasantly surprised." End of My Travels with Charley CH04 (1/2) MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH04: GETTING PHYSICAL (2/2) DATE: 10/18/00 AUTHOR: Sue Esty CONTACT: Windsinger@AOL.com I am surprised with Phase Two of my Tests though not nearly so surprised as I was with some aspects of Phase One. Phase Two is plain old weight lifting and endurance stuff. Treadmill and sit-ups and range of motion. And no sensors stuck all over your skin and trailing wires. Instead there's this light. It's not that much brighter than the ambient blast of the spectrum that's normal for this room, but it's -- heavier somehow. I can feel it touching deep here, there and everywhere, reaching under my clothes, even under my skin. I have no doubt that it's reading heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, temperature, blood gases, even what I had for dinner at that little Oregon diner with Skinner just before we set out into the woods. I run, I lift, I bend nearly backwards as I'm instructed to do and, blissfully, the exercise frees my mind as running or swimming have always done. How I've craved that endorphin high. Not that all is perfect. Through it all, what keeps coming back is how badly I messed up that last day and what you must be going through. I'm sweating and gasping by the time they finally halt the treadmill. I nearly fell half a dozen times. I would have given up long before, but they control how fast it runs and for how long. I guess I could have begged them to stop, but I never quite reached that level of desperation. Now that we are stopped, I instinctively look up. The Grays are a very graphical people, which shouldn't be much of a revelation considering the exquisite decoration of their ships. Above me are rows and rows of scrolling numbers just like the old New York Stock Exchange although they are floating in mid- air like holograms. From time to time there's a graphic of some part or all of a nude human male body followed by bar charts and line graphs. There is always three sets of data, two showing similar readings and one clearly inferior. I don't need a road map to figure out that the inferior readings symbolize my current effort and, if the Hunter is to be believed, the two far higher readings are from previous baselines of mine. You would have found the technology fascinating, Scully. How clearly it shows the degree to which the strength and efficiency of each and every muscle group has declined since this subject's last two evaluations. I don't know why I'm looking. It's all depressing and I'm already depressed. I don't need pretty pictures to tell me that I'm in a pretty bad way. As I stand there gasping, I've got a pain in my chest, a stitch in my side and there's a boneless feeling in my legs. But do I give up? Of course, not. I never was that smart. The next set of exercises requires the pushing and pulling of weights from odd directions. I didn't have to try as hard or for as long as I did, but you know my stubborn streak better than anyone. I continue to push this sorry excuse for a body far beyond what I should. It's seemingly hours later and I'm collapsed over a weight bench, when I realize that there are no more instructions being hurled in my direction. I am cold with sweat, which is a bad sign and my muscles are not just twitching, I've got a full blown case of the shakes and there's a huge hallow pain in my stomach that HURTS! You know the signs. You've seen me often enough during those fun, little serial killer cases they keep asking that I profile. I was running on empty, only this was far worse than just about any other time I can remember. I hadn't realized before just how near to starving I was. When offered a bowl of sludge, I actually swill it down with something like greed. When Charley offers me a second bowl, I didn't even hesitate to consume this one as readily. All the while, Charley looks on, but there are none of his irritating little smiles. He is as glum as a parson -- or an undertaker. My jailer then offers me what I assume is a rare courteously - - a second shower. It's hell getting muscles with the rigidity of rubber bands to move, but I do. What with the time it takes to lever myself off the bench, I have to hobble as quickly as I can to catch up with my guardian devil. If I'm too slow, he may withdraw the offer. In the shower room I am rewarded for my efforts with a burst of spray from the tap that is almost painful in its intensity which, considering how I am feeling, is just about right. And it isn't tepid this time, but hot. I nearly cried. I think I did. How low the mighty have fallen when just a decent shower can mean so much. What I nice, obedient little lab rat I'm becoming. Wearing my second new set of prison grays for the day, I emerge from the shower room to find you-know-who waiting. I'm moving better now, or I would be if it were not for the soles of my feet. We've never been given shoes so my soles have toughened with time. After my hours on the treadmill, however, -- at least it felt like hours -- they are exceedingly tender so I'm still limping. We walk or, in my case, shuffle in silence. I don't ask where he taking me -- because it wouldn't do any good anyway -- but what I really want right now is to go home. Home. At the thought I feel my face reddening, reddening because at the suggestion of home my mind and body conjured up the image and dimensions of my Spartan, coffin-sized hole in Stockhome. Is that what I think of as home now? What about my nice, soft couch in Alexandria; or your nice, soft couch in the District; or your nice, soft bed and nice, soft.... No, Spook, don't go there. As if he can read my mind -- at least part of my mind -- Charley informs me, "Not much more. During this last phase you'll be lying down." So there is a last phase. I didn't think that this was the way back to the gulag. My intestines make a queer twist; the lying down part is unlikely to be optional. I don't think that I should have had that second bowl of sludge. Less than two minutes later I am reclining on a different kind of examination table in a new room. There are restraints, of course, fewer than before but considerably more substantial. Hunter is still with me, all business-like. Something is definitely up. I thought there had been equipment before, buzzing and beeping, but they must have bought out the entire contents of an electronics superstore this time. The largest monster of all is hovering just behind my head, lurking like a bristling Guardian of Forever. The sharp edges of dread begin carving up my insides again. Why do I have this feeling that I may have gotten off easy until now? Neither of us have spoken since the shower. Hunter will tell me when he wants, dangling the carrot always out of reach. That's how he gets his jollies. So I'm surprised when he asks, "Any last questions," as he turns back to me from whatever he was doing. "I haven't asked any first questions yet." I get a little smile from him for that, but he doesn't offer any information about what's gone down and I'll be damned if I'm going to inquire politely. A tall Gray approaches and hands Hunter a long piece of flexible tubing. Instantly, I know what it is, or at least what it looks like. I've upchucked enough of them in hospitals after waking from particularly nasty traumas. I don't have any memory of how one feels going down, however, never having been what you would call 'aware' at the time, and I don't fancy finding out now. "No way," I tell him. "You don't have a choice. It must be done. We usually anesthetize, but I thought you'd like to go through the preparations conscious just to show how tough you are." He's holding the tube in front of my eyes and he's not grinning. He's very serious as if, honest and truly, he's giving me a chance to show what I'm made of. What I'm made of at the moment, however, is goosebumps and bones and skin -- and butterflies. Butterflies the size of bats. All I can say is that the bats had better watch out for the scythe, which is still working around inside. "What are we talking here?" I ask. "Brain scan," he replies, gesturing towards the equipment almost matter-of-factly. "We need to find out why you can't remember about the ship, about where your gift has gone. You never asked why we nearly allowed you to suffocate before. It was a test to see if you were misleading us about your loss of memory about the ship." "And? Did I pass?" "Let's say that you proved you didn't remember. Having been beyond the elder veil once, none of your kind will try it again without getting protection first. So you truly have lost it all. How?" I ignore his need to know. I can tell him, at least in part, but I'm not so whipped that I'm ready to turn over information without a fight. Instead I say with, I think, more nonchalance than I feel, "I've had brain scans." "Like a meteorite to a moon. Same basic concept, but, in terms of scope, not in the same universe." "Will I be conscious?" "I've heard it described various ways, but conscious isn't one of them." That doesn't sound encouraging. Maybe coming clean with what I do know would not be such a bad idea. "How long is this going to take?" He's busy with something, or wants me to think he is. "How long is this going to take?" I ask again, louder. "Earth time? Two weeks." Oh, he timed that well, the Nordic rat. He sees my jaw drop and springs. They've had practice at this, too. All I know is that there are big, stubby fingers all over my face and pinching my nose and putting pressure on my Adam's apple and my exhausted limbs are struggling against the restraints for all they're worth. The next thing I know, the tube is down. With that huge hand of his, Hunter holds my head against the headrest and the tube in place until the gag reflex subsides. He pats my cheek as he steps away. "Now that wasn't so bad, was it?" At that moment, Scully, I would have sold my soul for your homicidal eyes. Still, I did well enough. We went eyeball to eyeball for a tense half minute or so and it was Charley who found a reason to drop his gaze first. Still, I regretted not opening up about Smoking Man's solution to my surprise X-File-ishness of a year ago. I don't know how Smokie did it, but I'm certain that Charlie doesn't know a thing about my brief bout as the poster boy for Parapsychology Today. Would admitting to the hack and slash surgery have gotten me out of this? I doubt it, but from the fear building up inside I know that it would have been worth a try. Two weeks... Bloody Hell -- as my Oxford chums would say -- what are they going to do, pull out each individual neuron and examine it under a microscope? I wish I could talk or gesture, anything to communicate but with a plastic tube between my vocal cords and trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, there's little chance of that. I've also antagonized my only possible advocate. I make eye contact with Hunter again and I see that he knows that I'd really like to stop this, that I'd be willing to talk. That brings the smirk back to his face again. So now he knows that I've been holding out on him. He's going to teach me a little lesson about that and is going to enjoy every minute of it. While the silent macho posturing has been going on, the rest of the team has been proceeding with their preparations. They've stripped me -- again. What is it with these people and clothes, particularly mine? Two weeks with my emaciated unloveliness exposed for all the world to see? Damn them. They've also started installing tubes in all kinds of orifices, some to put stuff in, some to drain stuff off. I've had it done before but, like I said, not while conscious. It takes quite a while and Hunter's soon in the thick of it. Finally, he straightens up. "Very good," he says and with, I think I detect, some pride that his pet Human has behaved so well in front of his peer group. "Time for the last bit. Just assume as comfortable a position as you can." He makes certain that I'm paying attention. "Two weeks from now you will appreciate the suggestion." I'm blown away by what happens next. The chair drops towards the floor with me still on it. Other than leaving my stomach behind, that's not the weirdest part. Out of the corner of my eye I can see low walls rise up close around me until I am reclining as if in an open coffin. I don't care for the symbolism any more now than when I'm 'at home' in Stockhome. Then I hear an odd sound, for all the world like beer flowing out of a tap or espresso. That's it -- espresso. Whatever it is, something liquidish is flowing up around my bare ass and my legs and back and shoulders. In time, it gets between my toes and rises to puddle in my groin which -- I'm embarrassed to admit -- tickles. But that's a passing sensation for the level keeps rising. My head is slightly elevated so after creeping up my chest, the level is soon up to my chin. Up until now the sensation hasn't been unpleasant, just weird. Not cold, just wet, and not entirely wet either, but like being submerged in whipped cream. Tsk, tsk, Scully! Such dirty thoughts. I wish mine were as depraved, but bowel loosening terror -- which has been increasing with the fluid level -- is a big detractor from that sort of thing. The level finally stops rising. Too close. It's in my ears and nearly in my mouth. I hadn't realized that Hunter was still close by, watching with pleasure, I'm sure. He leans down. "Sorry, forgot this," he says and pops the black contacts out of my eyes and places soft pads over them instead. I don't like this. Helpless before, now I'm in the dark. At least my arms and legs aren't strapped any more. The restraints have fallen away, but I still can't move them more than an inch. They are now encased. The foam has solidified, not to something hard like cement, but to something very much like stiff foam rubber. The examination table seems to be gone, too, as if I've floated out of it, but with my neck in traction, I still can't move my head. Hunter wipes a little of the hardening foam, and a good deal of terror-driven sweat from my upper lip. What I'd like to do it spit it out at him, but I have no spit. In my panic my mouth is as dry as bone. "In case you're wondering, your people call this 'the sponge'. The matrix is a naturally occurring colony of single-celled organisms, creatures very like the sponge. In its natural state, which is on neither your planet nor mine, the colony is more or less solid in situ. The cement between the cells breaks down when the colony needs to move from place to place. Another race -- again neither yours nor mine -- enhanced it over centuries with tiny telecommunications devices so that they can both receive simple instructions and transmit data. They solidify or gel on command, just as you have seen so aptly demonstrated." He pats me clumsily on the head again, or at least the few inches that are still above the surface. "Don't be afraid, the matrix will liquefy just as readily. My people travel through space for months or years, contained very much as you are now, so two weeks is not so very long. It's truly a symbiotic relationship. You get a soft bed even a kind of massage from time to time, and they live on your waste. They transmit back to the central receiver every minute fact of what your body is doing, every twitch of every muscle, every hundredth degree of temperature change -- even the delta change in the length of your toenails -- and from that they derive purpose. We believe in symbiotic relationships," he adds with emphasis. "We believe in everything having a purpose. Your race exists for the most part without purpose and in a chaotic jumble. This will stop." At this point I feel the gel soften ever so slightly and sluggishly begin creeping again over my mouth reaching for my eyes. Hunter is ready as every muscle in my body goes into frantic spasms. He holds my head down. "Now there, now there, little Mooncalf. Don't fear, we'll meet again. We're just going to turn out the contents of your head -- in a controlled way, but rather rapidly for you, I'm afraid. As the images tumble out, keep in mind that our machines cannot read your thoughts, only activate them, and record how you react. We'll find out what works and what no longer works. That's all we're interested in. What use have we of the minute details of your petty day to day existence? Remember that, if that knowledge gives you comfort. Remember... if you can." The moving foam has closed completely over my head now. Sensing the Hunter withdraw his hand I surge upward, but the 'sponge' has already gelled too solidly around me. Like a fly in amber I am caught. What if they forget to release me? I could be locked in this Plaster of Paris mold for months as the ship speeds on to... where? Certainly further and further from home... my true home, this time. My true home, which is and always will be by your side, Scully. Have I lived forty years to end up the tootsie roll inside the tootsie roll pop? Or, considering how my insides feel, like the jelly inside a donut? I don't think so. Charley Hunter still has plans and yet more plans for me. I'm too much fun to torture. I, therefore, think I will live a long, long time yet. Alone and in misery, maybe, but live. And where there's life... I sense something. As the sponge is sensitive to my skin, I'm sensitive to it. There's a lumbering rumbling sound, felt even more than heard. They must be bringing up the mucking big machine I saw before to surround where my head is. It is more comfortable than being clamped down, only if something doesn't start happening soon, I fear that two weeks of this nothingness will drive me mad. Just then a muscle in my leg jerks, then another, and another, and now my whole leg. Though there is nowhere for it to go, I feel it push against the sponge, the movement quickly absorbed. It's all going faster and faster now. Like the rays of light that recorded my vital statistics as I ran and pumped iron, there's this impression in my mind of pin points of lights reaching out and triggering this neuron and that in my brain, in an efficient and logical sequence. And here I assumed that memory was all they were interested in. No, they're doing a brain scan of the entire brain. Autonomic and sympathetic, midbrain, hypothalamus, forebrain and brain stem. In addition to what I did on my third birthday, it seems that I'm going to be treated to a smorgasbord of sensation: every imaginable taste and smell, the memory or every touch and pitch of sound. I can see why all of this is going to take a while. As my eyes fly open and then close beneath the pads Hunter placed over them to protect them, I wonder how they are going to test logic and the ability to analyze. There's RAM inside as well as -- ouch -- ROM. Scully... ugh ... I'll do my best to keep up this journal entry, but I'm losing rapidly ground here. Or rapidly losing... or... Oh... oh, gaaawwd... My body is buzzing and jerking like some mad scientist's puppet so now that it's nearly impossible to concentrate. All I can do is endure and bad as it is -- which is tortuously horrible -- I know that it's going to get h-harder. Hunger, thirst, heat, c-cold. Oh, y-yeeeesssss... and new and quite original sources of pain. Shit! It's all moving so fast, too fast. One second I'm freezing to death outside the sub and nobody knows where I am. The next and I'm sweating inside the SETI installation on Puerto Rico and, again, no body knows where I am. In a breath everything changes and the wind is screaming around me and the rain is driving at me so hard that I'm drowning. Horribly dizzy. I'm trapped outside all alone in the hurricane with the water monster sucking out my life. Please stop, please stop. God, make it stop. I'd scream it if I could, but I can't, so I'll pray instead. Where is that hand in the dark when I need it now, when I need you now, Scully. There is a s-silver lining of sorts. I'll probably reexperience every flavor of ice cream I ever t-tasted... ... and I'll relive every moment of my years with my Scully. Two weeks will not be nearly enough to replay all that I remember about you. End of My Travels with Charley CH04 Author's note: I hadn't read about Harry Potter's experience with the Gillyweed, that magical Mediterranean plant, until long after I wrote about the slug. How I laughed to find parallels even here. For those dozen or so of you who have not read the Harry Potter books, find a few days over the holidays where your hip friends and co-workers can't see you and give these a read. They're better than the vast majority of main stream novels and with enough humor and angst and plot twists to please any XFF devotee. There is a surprising amount of angst and a mythology almost as complicated as the X-Files. There's just no sex... Hey, it's juvenile fiction.