JAKE'S LUCK: An X-Files/Red Shoes Diaries Crossover by Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger@aol.com) 9/96 Synopsis: A architect visiting Washington DC is mistaken for Special Agent Fox Mulder and kidnapped by a couple of very nasty characters with revenge on their minds. Warning: This story is rated NC-17 for adult material, violence, weird sex and really bad sex, rather gross anatomical descriptions and general all around not niceness. There is also nobility, determination, a rat, stupidity, luck, both good and bad, and an unexpected and not entirely welcome visitor. Disclaimer: These characters of Mulder, Scully and Skinner belong to the X-Files, Chris Carter and Ten-Thirteen Productions and are used here with respect and with no expectation of making any money. The character of Jake (the last name I made up as none is given), is the property of Red Shoes Diaries and Zalman King productions and is similarly borrowed. Author's Notes: This is not a pleasant story. It started with the premise of what would happen if Jake visited Washington and was mistaken for Mulder. The rest evolved from there. If you know what Red Shoes Diaries (RSD) is and you aren't allowed to watch it because you're too young, then you shouldn't be reading this story either. If you don't know who Jake is or RSD and you are older than seventeen then read below. There is, by the way, only the briefest mention of the actual Red Shoes Diaries in this story. It is a story about Jake and Mulder - how they are different and how they are the same. There also some X-Files stuff going on and lots of Washington travelogue stuff. I did actually walk the distance between the National Building Museum, which is an actual place as described, and the FBI building. The 'seedy' parts of town I've driven through on spring evenings. The 'freeway' as described did actually exist in the place mentioned for many years though it may have been finished. Don't ask me, I don't drive in DC. If God had wanted you to drive in DC, he never would have invented subways. Oh, and excuse me for D.C. bashing but I live in the Washington suburbs and it's rather a regional pasttime for us. Who is Jake? A friend of mine I mentioned this story to actually asked me who Jake was. So I guess I'd better explain. If you already know, you don't need to read this. Red Shoes Diaries was a pilot for a series made probably about a year before X-Files came out. David Duchovny was hired to play the male lead - Jake - who builds sky scrapers. Jake is a driving and successful architect and a sexy, sensitive lover. He has decorated a warehouse as his studio/eclectic apartment. It is equipped with a Victorian bathroom complete with claw-footed tub and stained glass windows and a complete 1/10 scale city scape which he lights up to show how his buildings will affect the skyline at sunrise. There's a basketball hoop in the studio. On the series premier of RSD Jake is comfortably in love with a beautiful but not completely altogether woman named Alex who realizes that, though she loves Jake and that he is as good to her as any man could be, he just knows too much about her. She longs to have some secrets, to maintain some mystery. To make a long story short she has an affair with a hunk of a construction worker who induces her to buy expensive high-heeled red pumps which she wears to their little rendezvous'. What Alex finds is that she cannot break off from this purely animalistic relationship even after she accepts Jake's proposal. Unable to justify the two halves of her life, Alex slits her wrists. Jake finds her floating in the Victorian bathtub. He is devastated. While cleaning out her clothes he finds her red bound diary which describes her affair in excruciating detail. Jake sinks into a deep depression. This betrayal is even worse than her suicide. Unable to understand how she could have done this to him, he places an ad in several newspapers asking for lovers with similar experiences of love and betrayal to write to 'Red Shoes' with their stories. This is the background for the series Red Shoes Diaries. Every episode begins with Jake opening his mail and ending with his making some comment. I have not seen very many of the actual 'Diaries' other than the ones which were put out on video (there were at least four with three episodes each) but Jake's character is never developed in any detail except in the pilot and one story called - appropriately enough, 'Jake's Story' - in which we find out that Jake has finally gone back to work but a year has passed since Alex's death and he still has no desire to 'go out'. This is an excellent story which I would recommend to any adult. I will summarize, however, that Jake is left at the end of this brief affair in worse shape than when he started. And so here this unsuspecting architect is in DC and now he has to deal with Fox Mulder's problems too. Poor Jake. JAKE'S LUCK By Susan Esty (AKA Windsinger) 9/96 Warning: PG-17 Chapter 1 Footsteps echoed, rising to hang in the air of the huge hall. A small, round fountain splashed soothingly in the center of the hall which, though nearly the size of a football field, had a beauty in balance and form and symmetry which made an impression beyond it's sheer size. Beneath the cathedral-like ceiling, two stories of office windows behind Roman arches look down from high up on the clear story level. Marble squares in the colors of earth and rock were set in intricate patterns in the floor. Columns of golden-veined stone, eight feet in diameter, some of the largest interior columns in the world, marched elegantly row by elegant row along two sides of the fabulous room. Hazel Harwood stared to the right, to the left, up at the ceiling more than six stories above her and then down at the marble squares at her feet. And to think this had nearly been lost. Neglected for many decades, left to rot, the building had been saved only at the last minute from the wrecker's ball. What a shame it would have been if that had been lost. "Miss Harwood?" A man with sparse, grey hair and a thick beard asked. "Yes?" "Senator Cranshaw asked for me to show you around. You're his...?" "Cousin. I'm an art history professor at Ohio State. Sorry if I'm a little breathless. I can scarcely believe this. I've been to Washington half a dozen times and I never even knew it existed. This is fantastic." "Yes, the National Building Museum is an unappreciated treasure. You don't find it on most of the tours. The neighborhood has fallen on some hard times but it's coming back." They walked across the large open room to stand between two of the columns just to get a feel for the mass. Everyone did that. Their footsteps echoed staccato-like, softly mingling with the gentle splash from the central fountain. "It's a little awe-inspiring." The museum director smiled proudly. "You should hear the acoustics when it's empty." The trim, middle-aged woman for the first time concentrated on the exhibit booths. Two or three dozen of them were scattered about the floor at the other end of the room in an artistic sort of disordered harmony. "What - ?" "That? A temporary exhibit on the architecture and engineering of the modern city. It's affiliated with an architectural conference just closing at the DC Convention Center. Over the last week we had some of the country's leading young architects showing off their works in progress here." Hazel Harwood smiled. "In the field of art history, most of the artists we study are dead." "Oh, far from that here. They're beginning to pack up today, but one or two might be available to talk to you." "I think I'd like that. Maybe a budding Frank Lloyd Wright?" The older man gestured for her to precede him and began wending his way through the displays. "I think there is an incredibly talented young man who is still here. He's from Portland. Ah, yes, here he is." A slender, dark-haired man wearing a crisp, boldly striped shirt and suspenders with his comfortably cut European trousers was just rolling a blue print. All of the tools of his trade were scattered about on his drafting table in various stages of being packed. "Mr. Simmons, Ms. Harwood." Ms. Harwood extended her hand and smiled broadly. Oh, if only she were twenty years younger. Hours later with the sun set long before, a tall figure moved with an unhurried, rather forlorn grace down the wet, glistening steps of the Building Museum. His hands were deep in the pockets of his flowing black coat, his collar was pulled up around his ears against the chill, March drizzle. The street he crossed was deserted. The downtown section of Washington was often that way once the office workers had all departed for their safe bedrooms in the suburbs. Two shadows watched his passage from the darkness. The smaller one made a gesture and the two moved forward much like jackals closing in silently for the kill. ******** FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder rolled over on his couch. The ancient leather creaked. Squinting, his eyes flickered over the digital read out on his VCR. Three-sixteen. Something had disturbed his sleep and not dreams, not this time. He had actually been sleeping well lately. If not another nightmare then what? His living room was lit by the soft blue glow from the television which at the moment was showing only the-station- is-off-the-air snow. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. He listened. At the moment the only sound was the television's soft hiss. No, that wasn't true there was another sound. A scratching, metallic sound. Someone was at his door trying to open it with a key but not hurrying. They were even fumbling a little. There had been no knock. One click on the controller and the television went black. As his hand reached under the cushion near his head for the gun he kept there, Mulder's brain raced back over he and Scully's most current cases. Had he irritated any of his regular stable of enemies enough recently to explain this very early social call? Nothing particular came to mind. Nothing more than usual anyway. There was no whir from an electronic lock 'picker', the intruder was clearly using a key. >From where? That was easy. There were copies in the rental office and, of course, the resident manager had his. In the microsecond that it took for all this to go through his mind, Mulder hoped the little old man had not come to any harm just because his tenant in apartment 42 happened to have pissed off more people in Washington than the combined efforts of the Democrats and the Republicans. The door opened, light from the hallway spilling in as Mulder trained his gun on the silhouette in the doorway, its identity barely registering on his mind before his visitor did something totally unexpected. The figure flipped on the switch next to the door turning on the main apartment lights. Mulder flinched, momentarily blinded, yet at the same time he leapt from the couch into a protective crouch, gun raised. There was frantic rustle, a shine of metal and a small woman raised a gun which was a partner to his. "Mulder!" "Scully? What the... " Both guns came down, safeties clicking automatically into place. "You just about scared me to death! I could have shot you." Stunned, Dana asked, "Mulder, what are you doing here?" "Last time I looked I live here. Why?" Mulder looked down at his wrinkled T-shirt and skimpy, faded jogging shorts. "If you had knocked first I could have worn something a little more appropriate." Dana Scully totally ignored the comment, not even a rolling of her lovely eyes, an omission which by itself got her partner's attention. She was more than pale, she was a rather noteworthy shade of ghostly grey. "I didn't knock, Mulder, because I didn't expect you to be here." "That's interesting. Where was I supposed to be?" Dana opened a manila folder she carried, pulled out a photograph and handed it to him. It was the picture of a man lying on his side either unconscious or dead. He was pretty thoroughly beaten. Mulder estimated the age to be about thirty if not younger, dark hair, lean, broad-shouldered and probably tall from the length of his torso. His hands were bound behind his back. His button down shirt hung open from his broad shoulders and through the rents in the T-shirt beneath abrasions and a great purpling bruise could be seen. Under normal circumstances the man would have been clean-shaven but at the time the picture was taken the face was heavily shadowed with at least two days growth of beard. The one eye which was visible was swollen and dark. From the cut on the forehead a trickle of blood stood out of the fair skin. And then there were more bruises. "All right. Some poor bastard's gotten himself beat up. That's no reason I can think of for sneaking into my apartment at three in the morning. Is this a case for us?" For about the tenth time since their meeting, Mulder noticed that his calm, collected partner was far from calm and collected. The hand that had extended the picture had trembled. Her hair was unaccustomedly mussed and her eyes, red-rimmed. Her voice when she finally spoke was not that of the cool, professional Agent Scully he had come to expect. "Skinner called me down to the office tonight at eleven. A street person delivered an envelope to one of the night guards." Dana gave a little shrug but she was so tight the gesture was more of a jerk. "The woman's been cleared. She was given a 'five' for her trouble but can't remember much about who gave it to her. Inside was a ransom note to the FBI and the picture." Mulder's expression continued rather blank. "Mulder," Dana said her voice showing the strain of a hellish few hours, "the ransom note was for you!" Mulder looked down again at the picture after a moment absently placing a hand to his chest. "But, Scully, it's not me. I mean, it's obviously not me. Why didn't you call?" Blue eyes burned. "I tried your cellular and got no answer -" "It's in the shop." "- and then I dialed here." Dana walked over and with two fingers pulled a damp sweat shirt from the top of his answering machine. The red light blinked. Dana was not smiling. Mulder felt his face reddening. "Sorry. I took a late run, longer than usual, and just as I came in I realized that there was this Vincent Price movie on I wanted to catch..." His voice faded out. "Well, you could have tried to call more than once." "I had every reason to believe you'd been kidnapped. I was imagining all sorts of horrible things. I didn't really expect you to have dumped your sweaty clothes on top of the damn answering machine!" Her relief had switched into anger. Anger for his having frightened her. Mulder understood. He would have reacted in the same way if their places had been reversed. Hell, he HAD reacted in the same way. Mulder went back to studying the picture more closely this time. "I don't understand how you and Skinner... I mean, this doesn't even look like me." "Believe me, Mulder, when you're beat up that looks like you." Mulder pointed to the slacks, then the shirt. "But look at his clothes. That's a haute couture cut. Much as I like them, if I have to spend a wad on clothes, I'll spend my hard earned pay on whatever the well-dressed but nondescript FBI agent is wearing this year. I've got enough problems without trying to make a fashion statement." Dana looked at the picture again finding it difficult to take her eyes from the swollen jaw, the beaten but familiar face. Familiar? Dana forced herself to concentrate on the subject's clothes. True enough. The incongruity had struck her as well. Especially the dramatically striped shirt. "I noticed that, but I thought you had just gone GQ on me off hours." Mulder sighed. "Since when do I have off hours?" Dana nodded. It's true, she should have been more suspicious. Mulder told her everything. Everything. If he had bought such an outfit she would have been the first one he'd have shown it off to. Between home phones, office phones, cellular phones, e-mail and voice mail, sometimes she thought they were joined by a permanent communications link. Except at important times, like tonight. Dana sighed. "All right, it's not you. But then who is it?" ******** For his own protection Scully and Director Skinner decided that Fox Mulder had to really disappear, even from the other FBI agents on the case, and for her part Dana decided that he had to disappear to somewhere where she could keep an eye on him. That night Dana smuggled Mulder into the Bureau in the back seat of her car which the focus of all this attention found vastly amusing. Mulder flashed her a smile before pulling the blanket over his head four blocks from their destination but the smile never reached his eyes. Solemnly, Dana turned back to concentrate on her driving reassured that her partner was not taking the situation lightly. Mulder spent his hours pacing the tiny walkway between his cot and the wall which was all the space he had in the utility closet in the basement which he now called home. Claustrophobic as it was, worse was the helplessness of being forced to do nothing and worse still the plain, old-fashioned loneliness for Scully. Most of the time she was off leading the investigation. She was after all the obvious choice. Ostensibly, she was looking for her partner. Skinner was playing this very carefully. Only her few select lieutenants knew that the man they where looking for was not Fox Mulder. The more people who knew the truth, the greater the chance that someone might slip and make a joke that might be overheard by the wrong people. The kidnappers could find out. "Well, excuse me, SIR!" Mulder thundered on night two when Skinner came down to visit -- to check on the prisoner was probably closer to the truth, "but I'll quit being a pain-in- the-ass when you give me something to do on this case!" Skinner was standing by the door, his expression disgustingly sincere. It was the kind of expression Mulder hated because it was the one Skinner wore when he was dead certain he was right. "You know what we know, Agent Mulder. Which isn't, I admit, a hell of a lot. If you can pull anything out of your hat to add to this, I'll be more than happy to take a look at it. Do you think we don't want to solve this thing? I'd pay the damn ransom out of my own pocket if I could but these people don't even really want to bargain. I've had teams posted to a dozen locations for meetings but the kidnappers have never shown up. I don't think it's primarily the money they're after at least not yet. What they are doing is having a good time trying to make us sweat." "I'd say they were doing a pretty good job of it," Mulder replied in a surly tone. "If you have any better ideas, Agent Mulder, just let me know. Until then like the rest of us, you'll just have to be patient." Mulder threw himself down in the cot. "You thought I was crazy before. Leave me down here a few more days and I'll be certifiable." Skinner ran his hand over the end rail of the narrow bed. The tone of his voice was as sympathetic as his expression had been and just as intractable. "I thought you liked the basement." "Not for forty-eight hours straight while some guy wearing my face is getting himself transformed into hamburger on my chit." "You know you can't show yourself. If the kidnappers come to realize that they've made an error, they'll be around to make a try for their original target and they won't be so subtle or so gentle next time. Even worse, they'll most likely kill their 'mistake' without a second thought." Mulder's face darkened. He knew this all too well. Dana had certainly drilled it into him often enough in the last two days. It was the only thing that held him here. Later that evening Dana arrived, hot, tired and with another envelope. Mulder felt his hands begin to sweat as he stared down at a new photograph. His double was not faring well. The bruises were multi-colored now. The cuts untended. The good cut of the clothes now indistinguishable. And they had sent Agent Scully a special present. "Oh, my God!" she had whispered, opening the tiny box. Inside was a small slice of pale skin and flesh which it took even Dana a few minutes to identify. "What is it?" Mulder snapped. He was becoming more and more irritable as the hours passed. The hand that held the little box trembled a little and those red lips began to look even redder as she paled. "I don't think I should tell you. Besides, I'd only be guessing..." "Scully..." Mulder hissed between clenched teeth. She shuddered and headed for the door, box in hand. "I'm going to have it analyzed." "Scully..." Dana looked back. That was her partner standing there, her friend, stress etched in his face, grief in his posture. "This loss won't be debilitating. It's not anything the poor man can't live without, but he might have gone into shock... And to think as civilized people we do this to our children." Mulder's hazel eyes were pleading. "Foreskin," she admitted with reluctance. Before she vanished out the door, she added, "At least now I know that there's at least one way in which I can tell you apart." "Not any more," Mulder said into the empty room. ******** The lab results took another day to come in. The ransom demands from the kidnappers were becoming nasty. Mulder wasn't sleeping any more. Dana scanned the test results. "I was right about the tissue, Mulder." She let the sympathy show through her eyes. "Sorry. You can take some comfort in that he's not your clone and not some long lost brother. Not even a cousin. Tissue typing shows that though he comes from the same Northern European- Jewish stock as you, there's no clear relation. Just a coincidence." "JUST a coincidence," Mulder muttered, desolately dropping onto the little cot for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. "You're wrong, Scully. This poor bastard and I do share something. More than our fair share of bad luck. So he looks like me on a bad day. Other than that what do we know? That his family wasn't Orthodox." Dana looked up from the report. "That occurred to me, too. Otherwise, he wouldn't have had anything to - ah - remove." Mulder lurched to his feet and began to pace. "Scully, I can't just sit here. We have an innocent bystander who's been kidnapped because he's unfortunate enough to look like me -" "'Unfortunate' is a matter of opinion," passed unbidden through Dana's mind. "More men should be so unfortunate." Grimly, she acknowledged a touch of Mulder's gallows's humor in the thought. She missed his jokes. There had been none for days. To keep from staring inanely at the same four walls hour after hour, Mulder began analyzing other case reports. He knew he wasn't making much progress but he had to have something to occupy his mind. As the hours and days passed, there were no new leads. Not one. If he really had been kidnapped he would be dead meat. The FBI had a no ransom policy. Early in the morning on the fifth day Dana burst through the storage room door, to catch her partner doing push ups in the tiny spot of floor beside his cot. He was still unshaved and had the tousled appearance of one who has not slept well, if at all. Mulder had only to look at her face. Finally, something. "What?" he asked rising rapidly to his feet, his face slightly damp with sweat. Dana sat on the end of his cot and spread out the contents of the file she was carrying. "We know who they've taken. Jacob Simmons. 'Jake' to his friends and colleagues. From Portland, Oregon. He came to Washington ten days ago to attend an architectural conference at the Convention Center. As part of that convention he had an exhibit on display at the National Building Museum. He had a Thursday night flight but never came into work yesterday which was Monday. His business partner didn't give it a thought when he took Friday off but began worrying when he didn't show up for work this morning. We know Mr. Simmons checked out of the Washington Hilton Thursday morning as planned. He had his luggage sent directly to the airport." Mulder worried his lower lip. "Don't tell me. His luggage is still there." "How did you guess? After checking out of his hotel, he returned to the Building Museum to finish packing up his exhibit. Late Thursday afternoon was the last time he was seen. His partner also checked his residence, the teenager who is looking after his dog and the diner around the corner where he takes most of his meals and picks up his mail. Jake Simmons never made his flight. He never came home." Mulder's expression blanked out for a moment as he accessed a map of Washington in his head. "How far is the Building Museum from the Convention Center, Scully? Four blocks?" "Five," Dana responded. She should know. It was part of her power walking circuit when their case load allowed time for that kind of exercise. Not all that far from FBI headquarters." "He probably walked that route at least twice daily during the convention. I know I'd never pay Washington cab prices for that kind of distance. That's probably where he was seen." "It is a transitional area," Dana agreed. "Safe enough in the daytime but after dark when the vast majority of the Washington business and government types scamper home to their safe suburbs, it's not a particularly good area to be found in alone. He may not have left the Building Museum until after seven. His flight was not until nine. The sun would have set and it was raining that night. Dark enough." Mulder looked down at the other materials on his bed. There was a slick company prospectus. The man was an architect Dana said? From the look of it a good one. Built sky scrapers. Very well heeled. The brochure showed a man who looked younger than his years, confident, cool, professional, almost smug, with eyes full of intelligence and life. A man with the world at his feet. How could Scully possibly think that I look like that? Mulder shook his head. "The kidnappers have made a really BAD mistake. They should be trying to get money from this guy's family or his company. Either has got to pay better than the FBI." Becoming interested in a different photograph Dana was staring at, Mulder reached for it. She released it reluctantly. "Why did it take four days for someone to realize this guy was missing?" Mulder asked. Only after he had spoken did he actually look at the picture. It was same man, the same face, and, yet, not the same. A dark shirt. A dark coat. Eyes downcast, and pain, oceans of pain. The smugness, the confidence, the life was gone. This face Mulder saw in the mirror all too often. Even though the second picture was in Mulder's hands Dana could still see it just by looking at Mulder's face at that moment. He saw it too, now. The similarity was agonizing. "That one was taken at his fiancee's funeral two years ago. She committed suicide. His partner says he took a deep slide. Very despondent. Clinically depressed. If Jake had disappeared like this last year, Paul, his business partner, tells me that he would have expected suicide before anything else. He didn't come back to work full time until a year after the suicide, but when he did he worked hard. Very high quality work, too, or so the organizer's of the Conference tell me, though his partner says he's still not socializing to his knowledge. Oh, there was a brief affair but that ended rather disastrously and he refuses to talk about it. When he isn't at home and his partner needs to locate him, Jake can usually be found walking by the docks near his home with his dog." Mulder swallowed. No girl for this man then, either. No girlfriend, no mention of parents, certainly no wife, no children. If he was found too late, maybe that was just as well. Mulder began to move. The chase had begun. Energy flooded his body. He talked, talked faster, as he gathered his gun, his second gun, his coat. "Let's go. I need to see the hotel, the museum, the Convention Center, walk the route. Did he have any acquaintances in the area he may have contacted?" Dana stood in the middle of the room, a fortress. "Stop, Mulder." He struggled into his coat. "What 'stop'?" "Just what I said. You're still out of this. Skinner says so and, more importantly, 'I' say so." Mulder halted, cold flowing in, strangling. "Scully, you know..." Dana closed her eyes then slowly reopened them. "I know what this means to you, Mulder. But, please..." Her eyes were pleading. "Don't do this to me, not again," then she turned on her heel and left closing the door with finality behind her. Mulder just stood and listened to the rapid sound of her rapid footsteps on the stairs. Chapter 2 Elbows on knees, Mulder stared at the black and while linoleum squares on the floor at his feet. How could Scully say not go? She knew he couldn't just sit here. She knew what it would do to him if he was forced to stand aside and the man died. Died in his place. Especially now, now that the victim was more than a face, had a name, talent, a history, a life. If she really wanted him to stay put, they would have to handcuff him to this bed, better yet, put him down in one of those holding cells in the annex.. Nothing short of physical restraint would stop him. Swearing he left his monk's cell and headed for the other end of the basement and the X-Files office. There he collected the extra ammunition clips from his stash in the little box behind the skull on the bottom shelf of the bookcase - never knew when you were going to need some fast. He was moving out, moving fast before someone came down to stop him. Certainly Scully knew by now that telling him not to do something was like waving a red flag. Mulder stopped dead still, his hand on the knob of the door. But she did know. She knew more than anyone. Just as she knew he would jump on that train, run alone after that killer, tear off to Alaska without a word, slip through the fence at Ellens, meet Deep Throat and Mr. X anywhere and everywhere. She knew he would not stay put during this. She had laid down the letter of the law as Skinner had instructed. She knew her irascible partner would understand just as he knew that she knew that he would go. And both were well aware that he could be walking into Death's waiting arms. And yet she had walked out, leaving him free, because she knew he had no choice. Mulder rested his forehead against the door, feeling the blood surging in his head. There it was again, filling him up like sparkling wine in crystal. Her love. Their love. Not romantic. Unconventional to say the least. Never spoken of, hardly a touch out of place, but there nevertheless. Absolute and complete. Waiting for the right time to be brought into the light. Now the right time may never come. Mulder turned and looked at this room. It held her presence. Held the memories of all they had shared. More than any other place their bed of exploration. He may never come back. What could he leave her? Something. Some message, as understated as the relationship that they shared. Twenty seconds later he was gone, the room unchanged except that the framed picture of a dark-haired girl had been moved from his desk to hers. ******** The sun was actually warm. The slight breeze wound around under the steam vent and came up under his long wide coat making his first trip into the open air in days a pleasure. A pleasure, that is, if it weren't for the smell. Mulder propped his beard- scratchy chin up on his hand and nibbled a little more from the thick stubby end of the carrot. Leisurely he scratched his ass. Right in public. And liked it. When a passing businessman on his lunch break threatened to look towards the grimy street person hunkered down beside the Civil War Statue, Mulder added a visible tremor, a few jerks as if he were being tortured by unseen demons. Just for effect, of course. At least this time. How far the great had fallen. Mulder had never gone in for under cover work. This time was no exception. He always felt ridiculous dressing up. Half the time he even felt ridiculous just putting on a tie for work. But the situation this time cried out for a disguise. After all he had not only the kidnappers to hide from but Scully and, if the activity here near the Building Museum was any indication, at least half the local FBI force. Even Sherlock Holmes wore disguises from time to time. Mulder cringed, blinking through his one eye, trying to send that particular memory elsewhere. Considering the unpleasant memories of Phoebe such thoughts stirred up, he had best table further comparisons to Sherlock Holmes for a later time. Like sometime a week after forever. Mulder stared down the street. From his perch on the only steam grate within visual range of the main door to the Building Museum he had watched a steady stream of FBI and D.C. police wander in and out since noon. A pair he vaguely recognized as being assigned to the Philadelphia office were looking up and down the street. They went all the way to Philadelphia for manpower and just about everyone but Scully and Skinner thought they were actually searching for the FBI's bad boy? Mulder should have felt wanted but didn't. He wished the circumstances didn't warrant this. The sun lost its pleasant warmth. His throat tightened until he felt he was going to choke and he wasn't even wearing the hated tie. Where was Jake? What was the poor man feeling? He had practically no one. A stranger in a strange, impersonal city. A completely incomprehensible kidnapping, beatings, torture, and for no discernible reason. He must feel like he had fallen into the fifth ring of hell, abandoned and hopeless. Mulder knew all about hell, abandonment and hopelessness, too. This was why he was here. Mutt and Jeff from Philadelphia were wandering closer looking for exactly what Mulder was looking for - someone who had no business on this street, one of the kidnappers come to gloat as the mighty FBI chased their tails with no leads. What would this pair of unimaginative, by-the-book agents see when they saw him? Just another street person? The homeless were a nearly invisible population in Washington. Like ghosts they were everywhere you looked but no one ever admitted to ever seeing one. Ghosts? What ghosts? Homeless? What homeless? Naw... With forced calm Mulder brought the carrot up to this mouth. Not nearly as good as sunflower seeds but less obvious, at least to Scully, and she was bound to be along sooner or later. Besides, he needed something to do with his hands or he'd go mad. The pair of agents were coming closer, trying to appear casual and unofficial as they questioned a bag lady, a street vendor. Did they have any idea of how miserably they were failing? Mulder could almost hear the mouths snapping shut all around him. Mulder raised his nose a little into the air at the same time pulling down the brim of his shapeless hat. Method acting. A middle-aged man, Vietnam vet era, with a non-too-tight grip on reality, badly in need of either his meds, a fix or a drink. Just another former inmate of St. Elizabeth's who should never have been released. He wore an ancient rain coat sizes too big for him over even older fatigues and large, heavy-rimmed glasses with a grey patch over one eye. Remember, you're homeless and you like it, he told himself. Just try not to wrinkle your nose against the acrid scent of ammonia and decaying garbage. No self-respecting street person would never let on even if he did find his surroundings and his own body odor rather revolting. Mulder sighed which reminded him not to breathe through his nose on this case. He certainly found his surrounding and his own body odor disgusting. Foul would be a more accurate description. An acquaintance doing undercover work for the DEA, who in Mulder's opinion was FAR crazier than Fox Mulder would ever be, had fixed him up with all the trimmings. Odors included. Ammonia, cheap wine, the dripping from the inside of the undercover officer's long neglected garbage can and a little doggie doo-doo just to top things off. Mulder shifted feeling the stiff old cloth rasp against his skin. He was absolutely coming to hate this idea. Scully wouldn't sit beside him for a week. 'Eau du Skunk' would begin to seem like French perfume if he spent much more time in the sun. One of the Bureau's innumerable blue cars pulled up in front of the Building Museum. The two from Philadelphia turned in that direction like a synchronized swimming team leaving the remainder of the street unscrutinized, including Mulder's steam grate. They had clearly been expecting somebody. Movement about the car. As the passenger emerged, a small woman's red glossy head just barely showed from above the blue car's roof. A casual turn. Ice blue eyes raked the street even as, with back straight, she climbed the marble steps into the museum. She knew he was there somewhere. Probably did not even need to go back to the office to know that he would do something like this. Probably was putting off checking just so she didn't have to report to Skinner that he was gone. She wouldn't look too closely, but she couldn't help looking at least a little. Be careful. He could hear the words even from fifty yards, even over the traffic and noise from the passenger jet cruising in towards National Airport. He could hear the words even though her lips had never moved and their eyes had never met. Mulder felt for a moment the chill from a passing cloud even though the sky was a rare, for Washington, robin's egg blue. Even at the FBI he felt at times like the odd man out, but he could not be much further from being on the outside looking in as he was now. He did not like the feeling. As the agents all moved inside the stately building, the heavy bronze doors shut leaving him alone, separate. Scully, this was really a lousy idea. Mulder forced himself to lean back and casually cracked his back. No more moping, he told himself. He had a job to do. Carrot in his mouth like a cigar, he used the heavy cane he had brought to rise stiffly to his feet as if just to stretch his legs. But in truth his eyes were roving. His uncovered eye touched on each of the characters lingering along the street, taking two-dimensional snap shots. He had no doubt that just as he was here, so were the kidnappers. They would have their gloat. They would have had the Bureau staked out so would know exactly when the investigation moved to the museum. Scully? Yes, they would watch her, too, but only watch. They would not move on her, of this Mulder felt confident. They had stuck their head out far enough taking one federal agent and were getting nothing but delays and rhetoric for their efforts. They wouldn't dare try for two. Besides her hollow eyes and the tired way she moved were probably making their day. Mulder shuddered. This is the way it would be if he really was the one who was missing. This is the way she would look and act and move. That was a creepy sensation, even more so because he knew Dana was not acting. In her mind these people were perfectly capable of doing to Mulder exactly what they had already done to Jake Simmons, and, given the opportunity, they would. She refused to give them that opportunity. A delivery boy caught Mulder's eye, but more for the pizza and subs he carried than any suspicious activity on the boy's part. Mulder's stomach growled emptily. Down, boy! Remember, the pinched look will be more in keeping with your role than if a homeless vet were to be seen ordering a pizza to be delivered to his heating grate. A courier in day-glow orange and green sped by on his bicycle, completely ignoring the traffic lights. Mulder had seen him before but he moved too fast to be a serious suspect. A 'banker' for the street vendors made his rounds, picking up receipts from the steam carts selling hot dogs and the Iranian selling Washington DC and Redskins T-shirts. This was too close to the wrong part of town to let too much cash just sit around. The bag lady settled back in the shadow of her chosen spot beside the subway entrance and seemed to be interested in resuming her snooze now that the duo from Philadelphia had gone off to hear Agent Scully's pep talk. Leaning heavily upon his cane, Mulder was just stepping off the curb which rimmed the steam grate when he saw the traffic control engineer again, or at least what he had taken at first to be a traffic control engineer - white, nondescript coveralls, a painter's cap pulled down over his eyes, and a tool belt, but no truck that Mulder could see. The man was middle-aged, stood about five and a half feet tall, and sported light brown hair with a splash of grey at the temples and a wiry build. For the fifth time that day the man had pulled the panel off the switch box of one of the two traffic lights but though he seemed to fiddle with this and that, the rhythm of the lights never changed. Running the previous views of the man over in his mind Mulder realized that the engineer had always positioned himself so that he would be facing the entrance to the Building Museum as he worked. Supposedly worked. As if bored with the lack of law enforcement going in their useless little circles, the engineer quickly finished his 'work' and began leaving the area at a rapid pace. Too fast for any salaried District worker. Mulder stared around in exasperation. Damn, just when you needed a cop there was never one around. He should tell Scully, but there was no time or he would lose his suspect. He'd let her know later. Later? Yeah, right. I'll be careful, Scully, Mulder swore as the half-blind vet hobbled on his one 'stiff' leg after a man in white coveralls, a spot now a block in the distance. ******** Four blocks from the museum the neighborhood took a turn for the seedy. Not the sort of neighborhood the tourists took pictures of when they came to Washington. As the blocks passed under Mulder's feet he realized it was not even the sort of neighborhood tourists would dare to be caught dead in during the day, much less at night. Teenagers cutting class if not the whole school day, street vendors selling Korean counterfeits of name brands, the out of work or unmotivated clogged the sidewalks. Mulder shuffled along, frustrated that in this crowd he was not able to make any kind of time. It was nearly impossible to keep the speck of white coveralls in view until he conjured up a scene from one of his more recent nightmares. After that a few explosive expletives and a fierce waving of his free arm as if warding off the voracious attack of nearly microscopic, phosphorescent, moisture-sucking bugs and he made more rapid progress through the crowds. The closeness of the buildings and the crowds suddenly vanished. Mulder lifted his head squinting into the sun. He knew this area. A two block square had been leveled years ago to make way for a new office complex which would have gone a long way into revitalizing the area. But then came the office glut and this part of town didn't look like such a good candidate for urban renewal any longer and so it sat. An open smear of broken concrete and weeds. Around it were other buildings barely saved from a similar fate. Up the steps of one of these buildings, a huge yellow-brick apartment building, the man in the white coveralls trotted to vanish through the front door. From the missing and cracked windows and the number of broken door and window frames where boards blocking use of the building had been repeatedly torn down, it was obvious that the structure had been condemned multiple times. Phone. To give himself a moment to try to locate a phone, Mulder paused at the corner of the block as if trying to shake a cramp from his stiff leg. There were people going in and out of the building, people of all shapes, sizes, ages and colors, the same types he had seen on the street before, but there was no phone to be seen nor any business open which might have one. This had been a rotten time for his cellular to be in the shop, but Mulder doubted that he would have brought it anyway. Wouldn't have gone with his image and it would have been just his luck to leave the thing on and have it beep at a critical moment. Into the lion's den then if the inhabitants seemed remotely friendly. Friendly would not explain these people. None looked his way. Not surprising. The desperately poor were private people. Paranoid but private, most not looking for a fight. Look like you knew where you were going and it could get you far. Appear to be too interested in business not your own, however, and you're asking for serious trouble. Mulder limped towards the stairs which led up to the front door. His hand was on the knob when a voice, rough, good-natured and male, called out from behind him, "Ask for Mabel." Mulder forced himself to turn slowly. The man who had spoken was a stocky black man with greying hair. He also wore the remnants of fatigues. Another vet by the way his body moved in little shell-shocked jerks. "Ask for Mabel. She don't make too much noise. Know what I mean?" Mulder had no trouble responding with a grim smile of understanding confident that the mouth appliance his undercover friend had given him would hide the almost perfect teeth his parents had worked so hard to pay for. The difficult part was keeping it from being a broader grin of relief. A long time before, perhaps as late as the turn of the century, the building had been upper scale. There was a wide lobby, yellow with age and brown with dirt like the brick outside. There was old linoleum in green and white squares, at least in the places where you could see it through the incredibly rancid trash. Mulder's nose twitched. He'd be surprised if the place had even a single working toilet. In addition to the building manager's counter and office straight ahead, both of which had long ago been smashed into almost unrecognizable pieces, four corridors branched off, each closed off by its own door though the doors were not in good shape and barely hung on their hinges. There was a corridor to the far right, the far left, and one on each side of what had been the manager's desk. Mulder heard footsteps behind and knew he couldn't be found just standing here indecisive and, therefore, suspicious. He had to at least look like he was hunting for something. Stairs to the third floor? Good enough. What he found more quickly to his right were two ancient caged elevators, no long functional, but they were in a recess just before the door to the right corridor and provided a much needed alcove of deep shadows. Luck was with him. The door to the corridor near the elevators was ajar, just enough to give Mulder a view. Two men came out of an apartment and one was the man in the white coveralls.. The other was of lumberjack dimensions who towered over his slighter companion. By his leg the new man casually held a sawed off shotgun. At the moment two small children were playing tag in the hallway. Clearly, they did not find the presence of the gun exceptional. Their game took them back into the apartment they had left but its door remained open. "Pete, we should be talking about this inside," the big man was saying. "No way. The stench is making me sick," came out a Texas drawl. "I can't stay in there. It reminds me too much of Marion. What did Jackson keep down there anyway? Hog smell better." "Well, excuuuse me, Miss Prissy. And does this mean that you won't be goin' downstairs again at all? Not even to put ol' Jim Bowie to use?" There came the sound of a knife being drawn out smooth from a sheath. Nausea rose in Mulder's throat as he pressed closer to the comfort of the wall and its shadow. If these two were talking about what Mulder thought they were talking about then he and Scully knew all too well what the Bowie knife had last been used on. "I haven't forgotten," the Texan replied slowly over the sound of metal drawn against cloth. "Patience. Macon will have his revenge. You city people are always in such a hurry. I'd have thought The Blockhouse would have taught you that. Besides, keepin' 'em danglin', keepin' 'em fearin' that each mornin' could be the one, makes it all the sweeter for us and all the more hell for Pretty Boy downstairs. And hell is exactly where I want to keep him. Which comes back to my point. I don't like to be distracted when I work. I'd hate to gag on the stink. Who knows what I'd cut off. Guess I couldn't talk you into cleanin' the place up for me?" "Jeeze, Pete! What have you been shooting up? You don't pay me enough for that. Nobody pays me enough for that. Just thinking about it puts me on the edge of losin' my breakfast, lunch, and everything I've eaten in the past week." The Texan's voice rose in volume jeeringly. "Well, if you won't, Lawrence my dear, maybe one of the girls then. They'd love -" "No!" At least Mulder thought that was the word Lawrence used. It came out more like a snarl. "No, not them." Reluctantly, the big man's tone mellowed. "Besides, they're too expensive." At that moment an apartment door just on the other side of the partially open door to the corridor where Pete and Lawrence stood opened and an old man with runny eyes stumbled out. Mulder pressed tighter against the shadowed recess but the old man tottered on down the hall in the opposite direction passing the white-clothed Pete and the hulking Lawrence as he went. "Hey, Pops!" the big man called in an over-sweet, sing-song voice. "Want to make a pint? Just a few minutes of toil for hours of oblivion?" The old man muttered incoherently and produced a wet cough as he shook off the big hand on his arm and moved on. Pete blew his nose. Mulder knew it had to be Pete, the noise was a much lighter one than the ape Lawrence would have made. "You've got to be kiddin', right?" Pete asked incredulous. "What if he took the job? What if he said anything?" "Would anyone we found around here really care?" Lawrence asked. "They look out for their own skin. Besides the Fed hasn't talked for days. I must admit I expected a little more spirit." "Yeah, well, so did I. Maybe I don't remember him as well as I thought I did. Arrogant. That I remember. He'll beg yet. He'll drop that stupid story he's been trying to hand us and he'll beg." Mulder felt a sweat of anticipation break out on his brow and under his arms. He didn't know whose luck he was being given today but it certainly wasn't coming from his normal supplier. These guys were making things almost too easy. There was only one person they could be talking about and with if the gods continued to be so accommodating the big man was not only willing to take him right to their prisoner but would then let him out again. Out meant free to bring back help. The delay would be irksome but even Fox Mulder knew it would be irresponsible to attempt a frontal attack alone at this point. One man against two? With the element of surprise, not such terrible odds even if one of the two men he faced had shot gun and the other a knife, but the man Pete mentioned a third man - Macon - who could be anywhere. And then there were the children. Mulder could hear their thin voices through the open apartment door. They could come out into the corridor at any time as could any of the other resident of the building. Mulder frowned and reluctantly decided to listen to his gut for once and his gut told him there was too much at stake here. If it came to a shoot out, there were the innocent bystanders who might be hurt not no mention that there were probably more guns in this building than in the FBI itself. And if by some chance Mulder was forced to kill both of these two and Jake Simmons was not simply 'downstairs', the architect might never be found. There was also the possibility that Mulder could be killed himself or injured badly enough so that the truth about the two 'Fox Mulder's' would come out. Either way Jake would suffer. So play it safe for once, this was no time for heroics. By the book, Scully. Realizing how he was dressed and that he was totally alone, Mulder found it hard to suppress a self-depreciating smile. Well, as by the book as I'm likely to get on this case. Blowing a stream of air over the disgusting mouth piece Mulder reached deep into the inner pockets of his fatigues pulling out his Sig and his ID. From his left boot he extracted his little back up weapon. If he were accepted for the job, they would certainly search him first, so he had to look as harmless as a lamb or two lives could be forfeit. Searching, Mulder spied between the elevators an old glass- walled mail shoot from when the building had known far better days. It was filled almost to the top now with trash. Reluctantly, Mulder dropped the weapons and ID down behind the trash watching them slip out of sight. They would be as safe there as anywhere, for it was certain no mail carrier would be coming. There was no doubt in Mulder's mind that if he did not come back they would sit there until the wrecking balls came. Hunched over, gripping the cane, a crippled, one-eyed vet pushed more fully open the hallway door and shouldered his way through. Simultaneously, Pete and Lawrence glanced up. For the first time Mulder got a good look at the man Pete as he was standing under one of the few yellow bulbs. This then was the ring leader, the man who supposedly knew him well enough to recognize him on the street. Mulder got a shock. Even with the card catalog in his head he could not bring up a memory of this man. He had thought this enemy would be from one of his big cases back from his violent crimes days. A rapist, a drug dealer, a murderer - but nothing came to mind. There was, however, the other name mentioned by Pete. Macon. 'Macon would have his revenge'. Mulder's eidetic memory started work on the name only he doubted that there would be time to come up with anything soon enough to be of any use. "Hey, bud, you got business here?" Pete drawled suspiciously. In his broadest Maine accent Mulder muttered through the appliance in his mouth, "Looking for Mabel." Pete's mouth opened in a leer. "Ah. Third floor." Mulder turned vaguely from side to side as if trying to see if any of the doors nearby lead to a stairway. "Candie's better though," Pete offered. "That's of course just my opinion. Then ya have to be able to afford 'er." Mulder just let his head nod and made to move on but not quickly. Bum leg after all. "You know, buddy," Lawrence began his voice showing interest, "they're all pretty accommodating if you bring a bottle with you." Mulder turned his uncovered eye on Lawrence while maintaining his stoop and keeping his face in the shadow. Lawrence took a pint bottle from his pocket and waved it. "You got a bottle, Yank?" Mulder shrugged stiffly. "Want one? They'll give you an EXTRA good time if you bring a bottle." "Don't have one," Mulder replied, adding the slightest touch of longing to his voice. "I've got a little job that needs doing. Just a few minutes of your time and it's all yours." Lawrence swung the bottle till the clear liquid sloshed. Pete was frowning but didn't complain. He was, after all, going to get what he wanted out of this. Chapter 3 Dana Scully sat at her desk, the framed photograph of Samantha upright and lonely in front of her. Mulder had left her - again - and he had not only left her but his most precious possession, the search for his sister. His legacy, his insurance, just in case he didn't come back. I should be used to this, Dana grumbled to herself. No, you never get used to watching those you love walk into danger. She had seen him on that street with that ridiculous carrot. He could fool the others but did he really think he could fool her? Just the way he moved his hand, stretched out a leg, turned his head. That was Mulder. She had known he would be there. She had known from the moment she had laid down the ground rules of no involvement earlier that morning - rules she had known he would never adhere to. The question was how long had he waited? By the complexity of his disguise not long. Ten minutes? Five? One of the hardest things she had ever done was straighten her back and walk up the steps into the museum leaving him alone on the street. Not for long though. She had kept the others waiting for their briefing long enough to whisper hastily to Edwards, her junior lieutenant. "I need two of your best surveillance men," she had told him to the young agent's surprise. After a second of hesitation Edwards had nodded. The word around the Bureau was that when it came to Agents Mulder and Scully, if you don't want to hear the answers, don't ask too many questions. "There's a vagrant outside across the street and to the left half a block," Scully informed him. "He's wearing a hat, has on an over-large tan raincoat and he's eating a carrot." Dana had to give the young man credit, he didn't crack even the hint of a smile. "I want him followed, followed like it was your brother's life you were protecting. But he can't know. Do we understand each other?" Edwards had. When the briefing ended, however, the young agent approached Agent Scully crestfallen. "I had someone out there within three minutes, but he must have gone. No one even remembers seeing a man like that. I sent out six of my people to comb the surrounding blocks and we couldn't find a thing." He must have read something in her face, Dana had not meant to show because he added solemnly, "I'm really sorry, Agent Scully." So where are you, Mulder? Dana asked the picture of the young Fox behind his sister, captured for all time within the frame. What have you found? There came a slight tap on the X-Files office door. It was Skinner, no surprise there. Dana didn't even sit up straight much less stand. She was too tired. "I take it he's gone." "What did you expect?" Dana asked with some bitterness. "We both knew he would. It was either that or lock him up." "You know I couldn't have just given him my blessing. Internal affairs would have had all three of us for lunch. That's not what he would have wanted." "So he's out there alone." There seemed no answer to that. Skinner cleared his throat, a little nervous gesture Dana would not have expected. "I saw your e-mail. Another message came from the kidnappers?" Dana picked up a poorly-penned note, now wrapped in plastic, and tossed it in Skinner's direction. She didn't even glance at it. The words had already imprinted themselves where she would never forget them. Skinner read silently: "There'll be one less stud at the old ranch come sun up. Sure you aren't ready to deal? If you change your mind you know how to contact me." Skinner felt certain body parts begin to squirm. Uneasily he shifted his shoulders. "I don't suppose the man is talking about a vasectomy." Dana's expression was like stone. "Nothing requiring quite so much finesse." Skinner winced. "Tomorrow!" Dana exclaimed with irritation. "This monster is going to mutilate a man at dawn tomorrow and the entire resources of the FBI can't do a thing to stop it!" "There's no indication in the note that they realize their mistake," Skinner said with some hope in his voice. "That may mean that Mulder is still free." "True, but you know how dangerous that is. When Mulder does blunder in they'll find out quickly that there are two and that they don't have the right one." Dana suddenly sat up, her face paling in alarm. "Unless -" "Unless what, Agent Scully?" Skinner asked not catching on. "Those glasses!" Furiously, Dana spread out Jake's file on her desk, frantically shuffling through the photos. "Mulder was wearing glasses when I saw him outside the Museum. I just remembered. Glasses with the left lens blanked out. Oh, shit!" Dana stared up at her superior, her hands empty. "They're not here." Walter Skinner knew the direction of her mind now mostly because he knew Mulder nearly as well as she did. "Some of the photos are missing, specifically the pictures of Jake the kidnappers sent showing his injuries." You fool, Mulder! Dana swore to herself. You noble fool! "He's doing exactly what either of us would do in his place if we could and he might even be able to pull it off." Bring him home, Mulder. Bring both of you home. ******** Lawrence led the way into the cellar. Pete had wanted no part of it. Mulder limped ahead of the big man who lumbered along in his plaid wool coat, his sawed-off shotgun aimed at the floor behind Mulder's back, loosely, but ready enough. Mulder added a wheeze, a slight cough. Lawrence's breathing was deep, raspy behind him. They descended old cement stairs that had long ago lost most of their grey-green paint. The passage before them stretched out long and narrow with a ceiling so low that both had to stoop. The walls dripped from the remnants of the cold spring rain. There was no light except that from a flash light Lawrence carried. Mulder felt naked, but not from the cellar's dampness. He did not like being down here without a weapon while a social deviant like Lawrence marched behind armed to his bad teeth. His decision to rid himself of his own guns and his ID had been a correct one, however. Lawrence had searched him well and even Pete who clearly didn't like to get his hands dirty had taken a half-hearted turn. Without a doubt the weapons would have been found and then Mulder would not be on his way now to ascertain how Jake Simmons was faring which at the moment was the task uppermost on his mind. As he continued limping stiffly down the passage, Mulder reached under his coat and absently rubbed the spot on his ass where Lawrence had the nerve to pinch him. Maybe it hadn't been an intentional pinch, Mulder certainly hoped not, not for Jake's sake or his own either, but the threat from this unforeseen direction bore watching. After more than a couple of long minutes the passage opened up onto a large room filled with huge ancient furnaces and boilers all dated no later than the turn of the century. The human stench that had been in the hall upstairs was stronger here. Lawrence went directly to the farthest furnace, the largest one, and used his foot to push down the rusty valve which opened the door through which coal had been shoveled nearly a century before. The ancient hinges groaned. The stench increased a hundred-fold. "In there," Lawrence commanded with a mirthless smile, gesturing with the muzzle of the gun. Not wanting to appear too eager Mulder bent down to peer into the black cavity. "What's in there?" Lawrence thrust a small, dented dust pan, a brush, a heavy plastic bag, a role of paper towels and a greasy spray bottle of '409' in the vet's direction. "You've been in the service. Latrine duty. Only you don't have to dig any holes. Just clean up in there the best you can and you'll get the bottle I showed you and an extra nice ride from the girls upstairs. Just don't disturb the tenant or you won't live to enjoy your reward. Is that clear enough for you?" Mulder took the supplies in the arm which didn't hold the cane. "Tenant? It's not a dog, I hope. Don't like dogs." "No, it ain't no dog. Just my, ah, cousin. He's a little crazy. You know crazy?" Mulder made it clear from his stance he knew what crazy was. "Really took off last week so we put him down here for his own protection. My aunt's coming in a few days to take him back to North Dakota where he can run around and be as crazy as he wants and no one will notice. There's so much empty space up there, they're all crazy." Lawrence's voice lowered. "So you don't listen to anything he says, you hear?" Mulder bobbed shoulders and head stiffly up and down and with exaggerated effort knelt down, pushed the cleaning supplies ahead of him through the opening, and then crawled after. It was as black as a tomb inside, it felt like a tomb, every breath echoing back hollowly from the blackened iron walls. Small, dark places, were not Mulder's favorite choice in accommodations. At the last minute Lawrence thrust in a flash light. "You've got ten minutes. Make it good." And the shrieking door slammed shut with a thunderous echo. Immediately after the door closed, Mulder leaned back on his boot heels and began to scan the interior with the flash. It was a cube maybe six feet by eight but no more than five feet high. Larger than one would expect from just the fire box. This furnace must have been gutted at some time but still every surface was covered with an ancient black soot that was more of a crust now than dust. Across the floor ran rivulets of rusty water leaking from who-knows-where in the building above. A crematorium. Great. That would save those guys a lot of trouble if he was found out. At first Mulder felt a slight touch of consternation. The furnace shell was empty. Or so he thought upon first inspection. Then he made out the tiniest flash of paleness in the farthest corner where some pipes snaked down. It was the figure of a man crouched against the pipes, his back to the door, nearly invisible because of the tarry soot that was everything. This then was the black grim they had seen in the photographs, though this was far worse. As he crawled forward Mulder noted that the man was huddled into as small a target as possible, head down, one arm raised straight above his head. The reason for that was soon clear. On the wrist of that arm flashed bright, new metal. A handcuff. The other end was fastened to a pipes that ran horizonal across the wall on that side. Gently Mulder placed his hand on the man's shoulder. The shoulder, the entire body flinched violently. Something like a whimper escaped unseen lips. An thin echo moved up and up and up. Briefly Mulder projected the flash's beam onto the ceiling and made out a one foot square duct rising. Every sound they made would go up. If Lawrence was waiting, listening, in one of the rooms above all would be lost. All Mulder could hope for was that Lawrence was driven out by the smell as much as Pete had been. A tracing of the light on the floor of the furnace showed a small spot, obscenely close to where the man huddled, where the prisoner had put his waste and other similar heaps, older and drier, in other corners from earlier occupants. As the men had hinted, this place had been used as a prison for more than one poor soul. Mulder came as close as he dared to the prisoner and began to clean up the mess liberally using lots of towels, all of which went into the bag. "Jake, listen to me. I'm not one of them," Mulder whispered inches from the prisoner's ear in as clear of tones as the mouth appliance would allow. "I'm with the FBI. You've got to believe me, we don't have much time." There was a long moment of hesitation, then the broad back before him turned, slowly, in jerks, with pain and stiffness. One eye blinked in the unaccustomed light, the other, as the photos had shown, was nearly swollen shut. Mulder sensed fear in this man. That was the only word he could use to explain the emotion that hit him in the chest. He was reminded too vividly of pictures in his own medical records after some close encounters of the nasty kind. Unexpectedly, Mulder found himself experiencing a flash of embarrassment, then anger, at the remembered whimpering. Damn it to hell, Spook, this is NOT you! This is just another one of the millions you have pledged to protect, only this one just happens to have had the hideous misfortune to have been born with a physical similarity to yours truly. Mulder let out a long sigh. Physical similarity? And bears shit in the woods and not in old coal furnaces. The eye that stared back on him was narrowed in the light of the flash and distrustful. He had every right to be wary of the use of his own name. Lawrence and Pete couldn't have known it unless Jake, during the early hours of his torture, had shouted it out to them. Certainly, the two kidnappers had failed to believe him. Mulder shifted the flash to shine partially on his own face and began to remove the mouth appliance, then the glasses with its grey patch over the left lens, and then the hat. As each item was carefully removed and put to the side Jake's one staring eye opened wider and wider, particularly when the glasses came off. There was make up over the FBI agent's left eye, latex and purple and red and black make up to made Mulder's left eye appear to be nearly swollen shut. "Fox Mulder. As I said, FBI, and I believe you're in my place, Mr. Simmons." The ruined lips, cracked for want of moisture even more than in the photos, moved. Mulder pulled a flask out of his pocket. Not liquor, just water. Jake took the fluid into his mouth as if it were the first he had seen in days but he was smart and drank little, mostly rolling it around, savoring it. When he finally swallowed "Why?" came out in a forced whisper. "Why am I here or why are you here? It's pretty obvious now that we're face to face, isn't it? Pete and I have a history and he wants to change the ending, but he made a little mistake. Pretty understandable mistake under the circumstances." Mulder raised his head listening. No returning footsteps yet though he doubted he would be able to hear them. Reaching deep into a space in his coat where the lining was thickest he slipped out of some casing three small keys, his handcuff master set. He kept the one that fit and replaced the other two. In seconds he had Jake's cuff opened and was helping the man lower the blood- starved limb. The touch of that cold skin was creepy, in fact Mulder did not find the pallor of any of Jake's skin from what he could see under the soot and bruises very encouraging. "Hold on. I can't afford for you to pass out of me. Are they pretty prompt about coming back?" A slow nod, a weak voice. "When they say they will." "I'm only supposed to be the waste management engineer. Do they plan another visit besides coming back to get the janitor?" Jake's one good eye dropped down into his lap. "One of them, Pete, said he'd spent a summer castrating sheep and was eager to take up the trade again." Mulder felt his own insides flip over and, even in the eerie light from the flash, knew Jake could see it. "Not an experience I've been looking forward to," Jake commented dryly. Mulder stayed in his crouch, for several thumping heartbeats as if deciding something. "Can you walk, at least with a cane?" Jake stretched a leg, grimaced, then attempted a careful flex of his entire lean body. His breathe caught sharply. "If it means getting out of here, I can." Rapidly Mulder began peeling off his coat and the fatigues. Underneath was torn and dirty dress slacks and a stripped shirt in a similar state. As Jake watched wide-eyed Mulder picked up handfuls of soot chunks from the floor and, one eye on the architect, began to liberally smear more of the soot onto his clothes and skin just where Jake was the dirtiest. "Take off your shoes," Mulder ordered. When Jake did not move but only watched the agent take off his own boots, Mulder hissed impatiently. "Move. Quickly." Slowly, Jake began to comply, the fingers of his throbbing arm not manipulating the laces well. "We're not going anywhere, are we? At least not together." He gestured to the fake wound over Mulder's left eye, the clothes. "You planned this all along, to take my place." "There you're wrong," Mulder muttered slipping on the other man's shoes and not surprised to find they fit only a little snugly. "You've got my place. I just want it back." Mulder frowned. The architect was moving too slowly. "Look, finding you was just a possibility I had to be prepared for. Something Fate plays me some pretty odd hands. I've learned to go along for the ride." "You should have said 'No, thank you' this time." Shoes changed, Mulder had been studying Jake's face. Now he added a last bit of soot to his face, a large glob where Jake's mouth was bruised. "I needed a disguise anyway." Jake's attempt at dressing, which had been progressing slowly, stopped entirely. "That's because you're not only hiding from Pete, you're hiding from your own, aren't you? You're not even supposed to be here. At least someone at the FBI has two brain cells to rub together." "That's my partner," Mulder muttered grudgingly. "Well, I hope he knows where we are." "SHE doesn't. That's your job. Get out of here and bring the cavalry on the off chance that I'm not able to get out of here on my own. And I would appreciate it if you hurried." Grumbling, Jake struggled with the boots. Mulder had gotten them large to help but it was still taking the man too long. The architect had managed the fatigue pants but that seemed to have taken most of his strength. His breathing was not good. Mulder knelt and began helping with the boot laces. There was quiet for long moment and still no sound of Lawrence's return. "Are you married?" Jake asked softly. "No, you couldn't be or you wouldn't have dared try this dumb stunt. Girlfriend?" Mulder opened his mouth and then changed his mind because he found in his heart that he couldn't accurately answer the question. Scully... How does one explain both less and more at once. "Something like that. She'll murder me if I let myself get killed down here." Mulder had to push the boot on the architect's foot. As he did so he heard a groan and sharp movement as an arm moved to protect some injury in the area of his abdomen. "Sorry." Jake's voice was thin. "This is a stupid idea. I have no one. Leave me here and go back for the marines yourself. It will save your girlfriend from having to murder you." "No, way. Even if you weren't mistaken for me, I'd still have my oath to protect the public. There goes what's left of my reputation if I come back and find out they've maimed you or worse." A long, dirty hand came down on Mulder's wrist, stronger than Mulder would have expected and the voice was low but every word distinct. "You can't force me to go through with this insanity. You go. The only thing I ask is that you must promise that if you don't make it back in time and something has happened to me that you won't do anything rash. You have no idea what that does to those who are left." Mulder had hesitated for a moment the boot laces in his hands, remembering the suicide of this man's fiancee and tried to convey through the intensity of his gaze that he knew exactly what the architect was talking about. "YOU understand that I'd feel worse if something happened to you and I stood by and did nothing - not that it's going to come to that because you're not going to be in the line of fire much longer. But just to let you know, I have no intention of shuffling off this mortal coil any time soon. To paraphrase Robert Frost: I have promises I need to keep and miles to go before retirement." Boots on Jake now, Mulder stood as best as he could under the low ceiling and held out the long-sleeved fatigue shirt for the other man but Jake made no move to stand. "This is wrong. You have obligations? Well, I don't. The world can do without another building. Go back to your almost girlfriend, Agent Mulder, and find out what she wants and give it to her. Of course finding out what they want, that's the hard part." The one green eye Mulder saw staring at him was pinpoint, feverish and maybe just slightly delirious. Mulder began to have more than a few doubts about his own plan. "Why do women leave? Why do they wear your ring at night and then run off during the day to be with another man? I loved her, I was gentle. What did she want? I don't know. Passion? Danger?" Calmly, Mulder moved to stand near where the cuff link hung, the closed end still locked around the pipe, the open end that had been around Jake's wrist dangling free. Mulder nudged the other man firmly with his foot. When he had the architect's glazed attention Mulder snapped the open cuff around his own wrist. The sharp snap and the feel of the cold, confining metal on his skin forced a fist of nerves to close in the pit of his stomach. The desperate act did have its desired effect on Jake. The webs cleared from the architect's brain, solidifying his wandering mind into a single bolt of energy and outrage. "What in the hell did you do that for?" Jake demanded hoarsely. "To stop this argument!" Mulder responded in a harsh whisper. "There's no time for it. I'm staying and unless you want them to kill us both when they come back and find the Hardie twins going at each other, you'll put on that shirt and the coat and hat I came in with, take up your sack of offal, crawl out of here and head straight for the FBI." Jake hissed. Mulder wondered if he looked as totally disagreeable when he was royally pissed. Grimacing against the pain in his insides, Jake began reluctantly to button the shirt. "You at least have the key, I hope." "Where you'll never find it," Mulder glared. "Did anyone ever tell you that you were certifiably nuts?" Sitting on his haunches, back against the wall, the shackled hand dangling above his head - he could not quite get up the nerve to sit on the slimy floor - Mulder smiled a grim smile of triumph. "More often than you could possibly imagine." As Jake worked on getting the coat on, Mulder watched with some satisfaction. The man's hands were trembling in pain and exhaustion and probably a good dose of fear. In any case a good approximation of the DT's. He would fit in close enough with the immediate world outside. "Answer me one question before you go," Mulder asked. "That's a switch," Jake replied sourly. "I thought you were the one with the answers to everything." Mulder ignored the hurt and sarcastic bite in the other man's voice. "Did those two tell you why they're doing this? I don't recognize Pete who was the one who supposedly picked you out - I mean, ME out - as working for the FBI." Jake keep struggling with the coat. "He didn't expect me - YOU - to. He was in the courtroom the day you testified at his cousin's sentencing. You recommended that the man be sent to a federal penitentury. And that's where they sent him." Pieces of a puzzle began to fall into place. "Billy Macon. Now I remember. I was thinking of Macon as a first name. That was years ago, I was a fairly green analyst with Violent Crimes. >From my profile I was convinced that Billy Macon needed to be locked away somewhere very, very safe for a long time." "That's what Pete told me." "What he didn't tell you was that on my word alone Billy Macon never would have been sentenced to Marion Federal. Everyone else on the case seemed to want to give him another chance and send him to a state institution. They would have, too, if Billy hadn't leaped for my throat as I stepped down after giving my deposition and then tried to take out a piece of my face with a quarter-sized chunk of broken glass." Jake stopped fumbling with his buttons to stare to Mulder. The matter-of-fact way the agent spoke told the architect that, as much as they may look alike, they, in fact, lived and worked in two entirely different universes. Mulder pointed to a small scar under his jaw which Jake clearly didn't have. "It was very dramatic. He cut me once, just a little, but I bled like a stuck pig. The press made a big deal about it. It was Billy's attack that convinced everyone to lock him up and throw away the key. Still, there has to be something more. I can't believe all this is in retribution for that." "I'm sorry I can't remember more. I was busy having the shit beat out of me about that time." Jake's eyes went a little glazed, Mulder could see the memory of all he had been through the past few days trying to rise. This was not what the architect needed to be thinking about now. "Are you going to be able to make it?" Mulder asked more gently. "A little late to be asking that, isn't it?" Jake snapped returning to the shirt buttons. "I'll make it. If I have to crawl, I'll make it. Where am I going anyway?" Carefully, Mulder gave instructions. All the architect really needed to do was get out of the building and a safe distance away as quickly as possible just in case Pete and Lawrence had a sudden change of heart about witnesses. After that, Mulder showed Jake where his emergency twenty dollar bill was hidden in his coat, more than adequate for a cab ride to the FBI even at District cab prices. "Just ask for 'Skinner'." Coward, Mulder chided himself. Leaving it to Skinner to break the news to Scully about what a dumb stunt he'd pulled this time. Reluctantly committed, Jake listened, asked intelligent questions and generally showed he was still mostly all there in his head. His strength, however, was in question. He frowned when Mulder explained that the area of town he would find himself in was not so very good. "You're at 426 M. Street, N.W. Whatever you do, don't forget that. Even the cavalry needs a map." Jake had finally finished with the shirt and coat. Now he was fumbling with the glasses. Their one opaque lens would hide his swollen eye as it had Mulder's fake one. "Where is the FBI anyway?" "The Building Museum is at Fifth and F, NW. The monstrosity that Hoover built is at Tenth and Pennsylvania. Not so far." Bluntly, Jake pushed the hat down on his filthy hair and even managed to stuff the offending mouth piece over his teeth and not a second too soon. Both men jumped at the sound of scratching at the door. Lawrence had returned. Jake jerked desperately in the agent's direction, the rapid movement making the tiny room spin. Mulder had crumpled his long limbs into a close approximation of Jake's position when he had first seen him. At the last moment before turning his head away Mulder mouthed 'Good Luck'. Lawrence shouted for the cleaning crew to crawl on out. Grasping the cane and dragging the bag of filth behind him, Jake pain-stakingly complied. Because he had turned to the wall as Jake had been Mulder never knew that Lawrence looked in at the figure in the dark corner after Jake crawled out. Nor did Mulder see the light in the tiny dark eyes. He only knew that when Lawrence swung the screeching metal door shut that he was left in the dark in a tomb of utter silence. How long would it take the architect to contact someone? In distance even by foot the FBI was not so very far. Ten blocks, twelve. A fast twenty minute walk for a healthy man. However, Jake was far from healthy and a stranger in the city, directions or no. Mulder stopped a shuddering breath, refusing to think about what Pete could do with his sheep gelding knife while Jake stumbled his way along some of the shadier parts of Washington trying to find either a cab willing to pick him up, a working phone, a friendly face or the FBI itself. One thing Mulder was determined to do - rid himself of this damn handcuff. If Lawrence or Pete came back then at least he would have some freedom to defend himself. His hand felt the back wall. His mind pulled up the picture of the wall as it had appeared in the light of the flash the one-eyed vet had been allowed. Jake hadn't noticed where Mulder has stashed the key - a small break in the iron casing just at the ceiling joint, a space just large enough for a man's fingers. Mulder's probing hand found the cavity quickly. His fingers closed onto the welcome hardness of the key. With a cry Mulder's hand jerked away from the hole, cursing as the key went sailing off into the blackness to land - someplace - with a soft wet sound, certainly beyond reach, that was for damn sure. The sounds of little paws and a squeaking came to Mulder's ears as the rat that had bit him scurried away to another black corner where it would not be so rudely disturbed. In pure anger, Mulder dropped back into his crouch. His left arm which was suspended above his head throbbed already and promised to hurt a whole lot more in the next few hours. Mulder spent the next five minutes, cursing, forcing the bite from the razor-sharp little rodent fangs to bleed clean, and berating himself thoroughly for being such a stupid dumb- ass. The only consolation he could find in this totally fucked up situation was that he had just made Scully's week. She could now look forward to administering not only tetanus shots but the whole series of anti-rabies injections. Oh, joy.