Title: What the Aliens Really Want Rating: NC17 for violence/language/sex (nothing graphic) Classification: MT/Angst/little humor Date: November 17th, 2001 Spoilers: Up to the 7th season, then a left turn while CC took a right. Disclaimers: Mulder and Scully and the rest of characters from the 'X-Files' belong to Chris Carter, FOX and 1013 Productions. I just borrowed them and will put them back later. 'Star Wars' and all characters from the movies belong to George Lucas and 20th Century Fox. And, yes, Star Trek is mentioned, too, but the series and characters don't belong to me as well. Feedback? Yes, please! To Timmy2020@gmx.de Summary: Mulder is abducted, but he doesn't know by whom or what 'they' want from him. Captured he has a lot of time to think. Thanks to Stephanie who had the difficult job to beta-read this story. What the Aliens Really Want... By Timmy There was that light - a bright light coming from above like the search beams of a helicopter. No sound, just a soft humming I felt through my body. I was elevated, light as a feather. I didn't even feel being sent up - I just watched the ground drifting out of sight - I saw the shapeshifter then. He wasn't as puzzled as I was. Of course, he probably did this tour every day to shop for groceries. I watched other people around me. They were frightened, some were crying. Somehow they'd all gotten here. And they all were different. From young to old, women and men, white and colored. I saw two Japanese, too. They seem to be everywhere, hm, but they had no cameras with them. And when the transport ended they looked lost - searching for the man with the flag to guide their way to a new attraction. We stood in a flat hallway. A butler asking for our desires would have been welcome, but there was none. Just the shapeshifter went ahead. A sudden blow from behind made two people stumble. We understood to move forward down that hallway, past other corridors which seemed to lead nowhere. Only a soft wind was coming from them. No sound. I want to believe. I've always wanted to believe that there are more life forms than ours on earth, but that night I'd have given much to be brought back down to my home planet to watch the stars. The people whispered with each other, afraid of what was about to happen. They stayed together, awkwardly eying the dark grey walls and tunnels, the high ceiling, and made their comments about the absence of any noise. Then we entered a room with a high ceiling, and 'arms', which seemed to come from everywhere, grabbed us one by one. I was the second taken away into a smaller room. The door couldn't be seen, but I was suddenly alone. One 'arm' held me around my neck, two others outstretched my arms to each side. I could hardly breathe. I coughed, uttered something, cried for release. The three arms held fast. Light came up. More arms. I freaked out, desperately tossing my feet against these other arms, but I could have talked about old B-pictures with the same effect "Lemme go!" I screamed. "I can't breathe!" Out of the corner of my eye I saw another arm appear with a collar, which was put around my neck. I felt a pressure on my throat, screamed again - but was silent! Coughing I tried again. Nothing. No sound. I sweated heavily, but the air in the room dried it immediately. The next arm had a kind of saw blade at the end. I was terrified. The urge to scream grew with every inch the blade drew nearer. No sound. Even the saw blade made no sound when cutting through my leather jacket, pullover, shirt. The clothes fell down. Then the pants and underwear, shoes at last. Naked and defenseless I hung from the three arms. But it wasn't over yet. More arms brought silver shining belts to fasten around my chest, waist and, finally, around my forehead. Then the sickening part followed when from these belts tiny wires expanded and entered my body through the skin. I would have screamed in pain - if I had been able to. The wires seemed to know exactly where to enter - ribcage, stomach, kidneys. It was stinging, but not really hurting. That came when the wires from the belt around the forehead emerged. They drilled themselves into my brain. Others crawled down to my nose and right cheek, piercing through the bottom of my tongue and then exiting through the left cheek. In the lower part of my body - I wouldn't even *think* of something like that to happen - the wires from the waist gained access to every hole a body offers, and in my thoughts I begged to stop them. Meticulously the wires finished their 'work'. Still I couldn't sweat, and I couldn't move. This was worse than torture in the Middle Ages. After a pause - I had hoped it would be over, but they followed a plan - broad silver strings were attached along my arms and legs. They fastened themselves by piercing wires right above the joints. I prayed this must be the end. I felt... intruded and molested, and with all the anger I could produce I hoped I could pay them back. Maybe I should have been thankful that my eyes remained in their sockets, but everything else was probed and penetrated with these wires or slim tubes. Then, after putting these probes practically everywhere, I was suddenly released. Dizzy I fell on my hands and knees. An opening appeared to my right and somehow I made my way out. I tried to stand in the hallway. At the same moment I was ushered into a box. No defense possible. Like in a big crowd I couldn't avoid the push. The box shot forward dropping me after a minute ride into a... well, I saw rats in labs and the site definitely reminded me of it. I slumped onto the soft floor, stood and touched the glass-like walls. They vibrated soundlessly. I could push them a little, but then they resisted like soft rubber. Reaching higher in that cylindrical prison the 'walls' heightened as well, making it impossible to grab the rim. I stopped due to the pain every move was connected with. At every point of my body the wires had penetrated the skin. I felt like being touched from within. I tried to pull the tube from my wrists. An instant pain followed. I gasped for air, screamed - as soundlessly as before. The tubes seemed to hook themselves under the skin - impossible to tear out. I let go. The pain subsided. In a way the cell reminded me of the plastic balls you could buy for hamsters at home. I saw myself roll through that ship like a hamster through an apartment - scaring the shit out of the cat. But the aliens were no cats and I no hamster. More a lab rat exploring inch by inch the cheese-covered small room in which I was captured. Through the 'wall' I tried to figure out what the aliens wanted. 'Scully, I wished you'd been right all these years - and I wish I could be with you now.' The 'hall' - for lack of any other word to describe it - was longer than a football field, but contained only a few cylinders which were set far apart. I could look into them, but even with my voice functioning I wouldn't have been able to make myself heard. All cylinders were roofless, and normal, breathable air circulated. I smelled nothing. Shouldn't the air in a spaceship smell like something... strange, extraterrestrial? I found myself silently laughing. Wasn't that what I had been searching for all these damn long years? Trying to make sense of all the phenomena I had discovered? But up to now I had never entered an alien aircraft. I had seen some of them, but never got close enough for an inspection. I shivered thinking about the first encounter on that Air Force Base. Two days of my life had been stolen from my memory. What would happen if they'd let me leave now? A woman was thrown into another small prison, not at all ten yards in diameter. She opened her mouth to scream when she hit the ground, but remained awfully silent. Coughing she rose, took a frightened look around. They'd done to her the same as they'd done to me. Metal-like belts around her forehead, neck, breast, waist, and long belts alongside her arms and legs. She tested the walls, the ground, looked up, then hammered her fists against the rubber-like wall. No sound emerged. Frustrated she stopped, examined herself and pulled at the collar. 'No!' I tried to scream, but couldn't. She found out herself, grimaced and went down hard. Tears flowed down her cheeks. She coughed heavier, and it took her a while to regain her composure. She sat on the ground, closed her eyes and wiped the tears away. I thought I could read her thoughts seeing her contorted face. I felt the same helplessness. No escape from this place, no idea how long they'd keep us here. No water, no food... How long could we survive? But would they - whoever they were, damn it - make such an effort just to let us die? The answer was simple: Why the hell not? Who could read an alien mind? Who'd guess what they were up to? Study? Then what? I scratched my hair beneath the belt, looked at my fingers. No blood. Just a few shaved off hairs. What kind of technology did they use? Aside from being afraid, frustrated and helpless, I was fascinated - and shocked about the powers working here. Mankind had nothing to defend itself if the extraterrestrials decided to conquer Earth. The thought suddenly jumped to my mind that this *must* be the reason for capturing us: testing what mankind was capable of. I swallowed hard. What would we endure? Or myself? Normally I enjoyed the luxury of warm clothes, meals I could buy somewhere, fresh water whenever I wanted it. Now... 'Think,' I ordered myself. 'Think of a way out.' But they controlled us - our body and... our minds, too? Was this belt a mind reader? Well, my thoughts concentrated on escape. Plain and simple: escape. I wasn't interested in elaborate studies. I longed for my home and, yes, for Scully. The thought of her triggered an awful and unfulfilled longing. I felt lost. 'Well, wasn't it like that more than once?' Without her I'd be dead and buried already, no question. But even her powers were limited - she would search for me, wouldn't stop. I knew it. But she would never find me. How could she realize I was somewhere up in the sky kept by aliens like a rat kept for brain studies? Maybe worse than that. The cage offered no game to play, no straw to sleep on and no food. I was thirsty, hungry in a way that my body needed food to work. Who cared? I pressed my palms against the wall. It gave way a few inches, vibrating under my fingers. A machine? A life form? 'Damn, stop it!' I wouldn't understand the technology, the background or the plan behind it anyway. But I needed to understand to find a way out. Hope. I had to keep my head up and hope for rescue - from within or without. There had to be a way. *Had to be.* After an hour or more - time didn't mean much in an always brightly lit room - I gave up. Thinking about me and my situation - past, present, future. That stuff that I ever push aside when it creeps into my mind. Too many bad memories, too little chance of getting the goal. Too much frustration what the next hours or days would bring to me - if there was a future for me at all. Far away another inmate was put into a cell. The machine turned back slowly leaving the man disoriented and carefully touching the wall. Then he jumped up, hammering the wall, his mouth wide open as if to scream for help. And with the next breath he lay on the floor, curled up in pain. I doubted it was just because of the movement itself though it hurt to move with the attachments around the body. Those metal belts obviously could transport... what? Electrical impulses? Directly stimulate the pain receptors in the brain? I was dizzy with that assumption. It meant that even if I could get out of the cylinder they would still be able to control me. My stomach turned. Hope was fading. Outside a long slim 'arm' came down from the ceiling high above us. A tube penetrated the cylinder, leaving the open end on the floor of my cell. 'For drinking?' I wandered. 'For drowning?' The other cells with prisoners got the same tubes via other machines. I took the tube in my hand. It was as warm as the wall itself and the floor. A drop fell on my open palm. I tested. Water. I sucked on the tube and got more water. I sucked and swallowed. Sweet, pure water. A good taste. Truly not taken from LA faucets. Hope rose again when suddenly my stomach felt like fire. I dropped the tube. The rest of the water spilled on the floor where it was drained at once. I had no interest in it. Where the wires entered my belly from the belt around my waist the pain was sickening. I curled up on the floor, breathing shallowly, waiting for the alien attachment to realize I had only been *drinking*. I heaved up. 'God, no, please...' The water came all the way back through mouth and nose. And vanished through the soft floor as if it was a sponge. But it was not over. The wires in my nose and mouth sent their messages clear and loud: pain. I put my palms on my temples in a fruitless attempt to subdue the pain. Tears flew down my cheeks while my stomach slowly went back to normal - whatever that meant under the circumstances. Then, minutes later, the pain in my face was gone, too, and left me with the miserable thought of either drinking and accepting the pain or stay thirsty. The tube dangled from the wall, mocking me. I had a sour taste in my mouth. No water meant no life. I wanted to live. I still wanted to live. But my heart beat fast when I took a careful sip and let it run down my gullet. Nothing happened. Another sip. Same result. Bolder I swallowed a mouthful and no pain occurred. Grateful I sighed, drank and stopped when I was satisfied. The tube dangled for a minute or so, then the machine pulled it back. I sat down with my back against the wall. I could feel the wire probing my stomach, maybe calculating how much water I needed to stay alive. The wire in my mouth vibrated causing my tongue to hum. It must have been some kind of examination. 'As everything here is, smartass!' I wondered if I would be able to speak with that wire in my tongue - if I was ever allowed to. The collar had interrupted the vibration of my vocal cords. The quietness in this field-like hall was resting heavily on me, as on all the others. But there had to be a reason why we were muted. Either the aliens had experienced that men could evaluate plans by communication or they were extremely sensitive to noise - or our babble was so impertinent to their minds that it was far better to keep us quiet. Well, what about singing? I could see the woman rocking herself, staring at the water hose still waiting to be taken. She had seen me ache with pain and had concluded that it was a bad idea to drink. I couldn't encourage her. I hated that. Was there nothing I could do? There would be no effect using a fist against the rubber-like wall. If she drank and threw up she'd blame it on me and I couldn't make her try again. What a bad joke. You have to deal with pain to get water. What happened if they delivered food? If they did. I needed to pee and while I thought about the connection of wire vs. water in my stomach I couldn't hold it any longer. As seen before the floor was dry shortly after. 'And my pee will be cooked in an Erlenmeyer flask to check for special ingredients.' What a laugh! But my laugh quickly turned to a grimace. The following pain in my abdomen made me understand why people were so afraid to get cold feet. Cystitis truly was nothing to take lightly. Recovered I thought about my options and decided that - it had to be night on Earth already - I should try to sleep. I lay on the floor, closed my sore eyes and found it surprisingly warm. One point for the aliens' knowledge about the well-being of men. * * * The flexible walls made it impossible to commit suicide in here. You couldn't even hurt yourself. But what happened if I cracked my elbow on purpose? Would they fix it? Would they just watch and scratch their bald... whatever they had to scratch - and mumble about my stupidity? The uncomfortable place on the ground woke me up. My arm hurt where the metallic belt had left a deep impression on my flesh. I squinted against the radiating light. Maybe one more thing about the alien nature: they loved bright light. I sat up wearily. What else? Some experience with humans, yes. Advanced technology beyond human understanding. High intelligence therefore. Searching for... what? Contact? A planet to colonize? That of course included detailed information about the inhabitants. If men were useful for working, how much resistance the alien would have to expect and deal with. I sighed deeply. A look around convinced me that the mere thought of 'resistance' should be defined anew. In my mind I saw partisans shooting with stinger rockets - hitting nothing but the protective shield of the space ship which fired back laser beams. Explosion on Earth. Another group destroyed. 'Stop it. This is not Star Trek.' And Picard wouldn't come up with a brilliant idea after forty minutes of the show. Surroundings were the same. Men and women, some sitting on the ground, some testing the shiny walls. Nothing else. No action above. What was going on? How did they test us? The thought of starvation crawled back into my mind. I was hungry like a wolf. 'What goes on in their minds?' I asked myself over and over again. Once a profiler I was used to slip into the mind of a murderer, kidnapper, a brain-damaged idiot taking hostages at a bank or a travel agency. I remembered that one very well. Duane Barry had been abducted more than once - years ago. More questions my mind could concentrate on: would they drill holes in my teeth? (Bad one, skip to the next.) Was this the same alien race that visited Earth years ago? If so, why did they still run tests on humans? For a race as advanced as it was, they should have gathered all information necessary by now and go on with their plans. Well, there had been the shapeshifter, right? What would he do here if this was another race infiltrating our society? He didn't seem to be a prisoner, too. My stomach grumbled again. Thirst accompanied hunger. 'Get back to the studies, Mulder.' Judging by what I saw the space ship was huge, probably carrying thousands of aliens to found colonies on earth - if that was their intention. A painful 'TWANG' in my head stopped my brain jogging. A cry - as muted as before - escaped my mouth and I held my hands to my temples in a futile attempt to stop the throbbing pain. It lasted ten long seconds, then stopped abruptly. I breathed, realizing I had held my breath the whole time. I was dizzy, stars danced before my eyes. 'Malfunction or purpose?' God, what a headache! The wire in my stomach obviously had sent a message to whomever. The machine with the tube meandered down, delivering water to every cell. I drank wondering if the aliens got the information 'thirst' from my thoughts or the wires in my stomach, my throat, my... kidneys maybe? Every part of my body would be clear as glass to them. Sucking water I imagined monitors where 'they' could watch my stomach fill, then the water being taken though the kidneys and out again. Sure, to prepare colonization they needed information about the sources we built our life upon. Knowing only that is was carbon-based wouldn't do any good. Another 'arm' dangled from the wall, another tube perpetrated the wall of my prison. My stomach sank. 'Well, first a grinding pain and the food?' I decided to give it a try. The taste of the light yellow-brown liquid wasn't hamburger and fries, but not too bad either. Kind of... sweet and mealy. I was cautious. One mouthful, then I waited to see how the wires - more than my stomach - would react. Nothing happened. I was hungry so I took the next sip. The taste got better. My hunger was even bigger than I'd thought. I swallowed and felt better. I let of the tube, settled on the floor and, again, felt the wires inside me humming. My whole body hummed with them. I watched the woman next to my cell. She had yet resisted drinking and eating, but now she carefully took the tube with water, then food. To my surprise she didn't suffer from pain. I frowned. The conclusion was easily drawn: the aliens learned via the wires how our bodies worked. I had been the first so the wires hadn't adjusted to the contact with water. The others - more careful than I had been - profited from my haste. Or my courage. That sounded better. She drank and ate and sat back. The tubes disappeared in the far away ceiling. One day had passed. They knew now about our eating habits and the way our intestines worked. Fine. Now they could release us and fly back to their galaxy, telling their people that we lived quite well and consisted of eighty percent of water. And, please, go and torment some other species with your curiosity! I looked at the attachments to my arms. Silver shine, some unknown signs, shimmering inlays. Warm and soft. More like living tissue than anything artificial. Life forms, too? Or - even more farfetched - the aliens themselves? 'Stop it, Mulder, your brain's close to an overheat emergency shutdown!' But wouldn't that explain why their tentacles reacted so violently - and so painfully for me - to water? 'Step back and watch your brain cells melt, stupid profiler.' If it could get any stranger, the 'wall' enlarged. I stood, watched tensely as the floor moved, too, and left and right from my position two small 'walls' were set up. From above, it would have looked like a piece of pie - or cheese to stay in the picture. I was the decoration of the piece. And I worried there would be no fun coming up. The two sides of the 'piece of cheese' began to rotate around the center of my cell, pushing me. I walked with it, round and round. As I tried to avoid the walk the small walls simply grew to the outer wall. I walked, then stopped. Got a hard push to walk on. I stumbled forward, matched the speed. Just to find out the reaction I jumped over the small wall. Landed in the bigger piece. Immediately the two small walls centered me again. I walked on. The others walked, too. From walking we went over to slow jogging. The cell widened again, and by a third small wall erecting from the middle I was forced to jog at the outer rim. I fell into a powersaving speed easily matching the walls turning the cell. Minutes later they sped up again. Sweat tickled from my forehead; I swept it with the back of my hand. The response from the attachment was a stinging pain. I ran with clenched teeth, feeling the wires with every step I took - probing me, examining what happened in my body. Well, why not ask a human scientist? He could have answered all these questions in no time! Another 'TWANG' in my head made me stumble. 'Wrong suggestion?' I thought squinting my eyes shut. It took me a few rounds to regain my strength and run at the required speed. More sweat and exhaustion. The run after a long time of hanging around took its toll. I stumbled again, gripping the small wall in front of me. It slipped under my fingers, built up again a few inches away. My heart raced, images danced before my eyes, my lungs couldn't cope with the mass of oxygen needed. My legs crumpled under me. I fell on my knees. The wall behind me stopped. I gasped for air, and the wires in my nose and mouth hummed rhythmically with every breath. My elbows and knees ached awfully where the holding device penetrated right above the joints. The small walls descended through the ground. The cell merged back into its original shape around the place where I knelt. I took a look around again. Some people were still running, some sat on the ground making signs with their hands that they needed water. 'Me, too,' I thought. The wish was fulfilled. A point more to the theory of the wires telling the aliens everything about our body functions. I was still wondering if they could read our minds. 'Well, then, listen up. We're not enemies, but we're truly pissed off being caged and tormented!' Another burst of pain shook my brain. I gasped, bowed, begging for the pain to stop. It lasted longer, and faint, like from a far distance I heard 'friend' in my mind. Then the pain slowly subsided. I found myself curled up on the floor, breathing heavily, sobbing. If this had been an attempt to communicate they'd definitely have to tune their radios. Hell, my head seemed to be blown to pieces. Slowly I sat up, tried to put away the bad feeling of hopelessness and that I'd never get out again. 'Concentrate on what lies close at hand.' A message. An attempt to tell me - painful or not - that they were 'friends'. Well, this was not the Walton family sitting around the breakfast table! Why would they torment us like they did when being friendly? I didn't consider the belts and collar around my body and the piercing everywhere as a warm hug. My eyesight was getting better again. None of the others seemed to have suffered from pain. 'Great! I'm the one they picked.' What for? And if the others were not involved, why did they keep them caged? I sat with my back gently pressed against the wall, pulled my legs close and rested my head on my arms. I was bone-tired, but with the endless stinging pain the wires caused, it was hard to sleep. I had to, or I would collapse sooner than later. I had never cared much for health food or sports, so my body wouldn't endure a long time of torture. - I knew I shouldn't think about 'a long time'. It'd make me crazy. From spooky to screwball to... whatever brought me into an isolated hospital for the mentally handicapped. 'Gross, stop it!' I wanted to escape. Not surrender to my own desperate thoughts. The aliens provided us with water, food and made us exercise. Probably to gain more information. 'Nice, and when they have everything they need they dump us.' The moment I thought it, was the moment the brain smashing pain repeated. I moaned, fell to the side, tried to send 'Stop it!' but their signal was louder. 'Friend' came in again, and the pain faded. I tried to rip the belt off my forehead. Too much. Too much! It held fast. Of course. What kind of idiot was I to think they'd let me go because I had a severe headache and refused to receive messages based on tormenting pain? 'Tune in tomorrow for another heart-thrilling adventure of Mulder - caged and tortured. - My, wiseass, you're losing it!' The wires inside my head relaxed a little. My hands trembled, and I wondered why the aliens hadn't stopped me from pulling at the belt anyway. Probably they had the power to make my arms go limp. Why not use it? Because it was futile what I did? None of these belts or wires would come off. No chance. 'Yeah, take a minute and analyze the situation a little closer: Your sorry ass is trapped, and the trap has no 'exit' sign.' No. I swallowed and wiped away the sweat from my forehead. 'Don't give up. It's too soon.' But what if this ordeal went on for days, weeks? * * * I could hardly sleep, and this wasn't only because of wires and belts constantly surveying my body. Reflecting upon my thoughts prior to the bursts of pain I figured it was my *thoughts* they answered to. 'Oh, how perfectly you play the part of the believer!' Damn it, why couldn't I be just the ordinary agent with a normal life? Instead I was a freak no one would ever regard as mainstream. 'Go for it, Mulder, it's time to muse about the dark truth of your life.' I didn't want that. I didn't want to think about what I had done wrong, or how much I needed to go back in time and make a few changes here and there. I would only start blaming myself for more things than I already did, and with the amount of guilt I ran around right now, I was more than overloaded. I wondered if there had been better days in my life. Okay, before I turned ten and with Sam at my side I had been a happy camper though we had no home, sweet home in the original meaning. But after that awful night of Samantha's abduction I never got back to that part of a normal teenager or young adult. I made my way, yes, I studied hard and started a career with the Bureau, but aside from these actions I never made it into a normal life. Girlfriend. Marriage. Children. House. Garden. Satisfaction at work and more money. All these things didn't appeal to me. I chased monsters instead. (Well, Mulder, here we go - it's dark outside, and the monsters fly by night...) The office in the basement clearly fit for me. Spooky. 'Yeah, hang some cobwebs around and decorate a daily new Halloween for me! No sweets, please, I take all the treats instead.' 'You *are* losing it, Mulder.' Scully. She was the one and only. My anchor to the real world. My counterpart. My constant critic, and, not least, my friend who had never given up on me. Idiotic behavior from my side included. I couldn't count how many times she had been there to rescue me for I have a record of bringing myself into trouble. From getting shot at to nearly freezing to death I'm a pro. But Scully has never swayed. A song by U2 got into my mind - 'She moves in mysterious ways'. Well, like all women, Scully would remain a mystery for me. Which I could accept as long as all her ways ended up with me in the center. If I'd ever get back to her. That made my mind settle back on the idea of how to get from this ship - if it was - and fly home. Catch a few clothes and run... There was a problem at hand that should be solved: I couldn't order my brain to shut off. Not think anymore. I feared that the pain would return. I knew by now that the reaction was fierce and threw me on the ground. But how could I help it? What were the other inmates doing that this pain didn't happen to them? Not that I wished anyone to be harmed, but what made me... a better receiver? My brainwaves? My ill-combined cells mutated by years of searching for Bigfoot, Nessie and a hundred other non-existing life forms? Or was I just the perfect match in age, weight, color of hair and the way I chewed my lower lip? I had to stop thinking. I had to. But this was a strange thing to do when sitting in a trap with no distraction. As if the aliens knew how to get me back on target, one 'arm' lowered from the ceiling, dropping something to my feet. I stared at if as if it had six feet, ten eyes and was completely made of melting strawberry ice cream. If you think it can't get stranger, the hammer hits you. It was a paper. A *newspaper*. A not too old newspaper from a town called Crossfork I'd never heard of before. I asked myself who was getting cranky in here - me or the aliens sitting somewhere up on their bridge (maybe laying, maybe floating in mid-air - who the fuck was I to know?) playing with baseball cards they had stolen from a kid. (Whom nobody would have believed he lost cards to a green-eyed monster with eight arms and two contradicting heads. Of course, I would have been the one understanding...) 'Mulder, stick to the problem right *here*.' I unfolded the paper, wondering about the intention. The other inmates got papers, too, so it looked to me as if I wasn't that special after all. We were all still here. I read the headlines and found the stories about abductees on page three. Two people were missing and it was reported that spectators had seen some bright light coming from the stars. Then the two people were gone. 'Bingo,' I thought. 'What a homerun.' The wires in my head hummed and hummed. How could the extraterrestrials know about our human habit to read the paper? For how long had they been studying us? How many groups had been here on this ship before? 'Stop it!' I ordered myself. I wasn't ready for another round of beheading by radio waves sent through me with the wrong frequency. Too late. 'Friends!' My paper dropped to the floor as I raised my hands to the belt around my head, crying out in agony. 'Friends... we... are!' God, it sounded like Yoda on a level A drug trip. Again 'Friends we try to be!' sounded through my head. Not better. My head hurt harder as if the transition was stressed with the intensity. 'Damn it, I fuckin' got it! Stop before you've no one with *my* brains around here!' Stop. It defnitely stopped. No analytical point of view, no trying to find out how real the meaning of the message was. My hands, my teeth were clenched, and my eyes squeezed firmly shut. With all the knowledge about abductions I had gathered through the years, how could I have thought aliens were friendly little people just curious to come to know humans? I rocked forward, feeling the pain shiver through my whole body, ripping at the nerves I had left. 'Friends we try to be!' echoed through me. The message was complete; the pain ebbed away, but my breakfast was already on its way out. Still shaking I watched the remains disappear in the ground, mixed with the blood from my nose. I had smears on my hands, and I felt sick to the bone. The headache was worse than after a full week of boozing, but it didn't stop me thinking. The ground was clear again. Some people at home - on Earth! - would make a fortune out of this incredible floor. 'No washing, no vacuum cleaning, no anger about spilled milk from the kids. Just a second, a blink of an eye, and it's clear again!' I guessed that vendors would go *every* way necessary to put their hands on the secret of this floor. My stomach was a stone hanging somewhere in the midst of my body. When shotgunned I knew the location of pain, here it was all adding up to an embracing ordeal. I wanted it to end - now. I wanted to go back where I belonged. 'All right, Mulder, there's a long way to go. Let's face it: They want to be your *friends*.' 'Yeah, right. Nice idea to think about the moment before my brain explodes into a thousand shreds.' I lifted my head. The woman from the next cell eyed me closely, frowning. Pitiful. She had opened the paper, too, but obviously stopped when I got the 'message'. She probably feared to be the next victim. I let out a deep breath, focused on the woman, tried a smile. No effect. She made gestures with her hands accompanied by soundless movement of her mouth. Sign language. I held up my open palms: I didn't understand. Frustrated she stopped, slumped her shoulders. Then she took the page of the paper with the reported abductees, pointed at the article, then to herself. 'Me.' Strangely she came from this area. 'Well, the aliens had been shopping - ten people, please, and add up some newspapers. Thank you.' I thought about the shapeshifter for a moment, then nodded toward the woman. She pointed at me, inquiring 'You?' I mouthed, 'Bellefleur, Oregon', and she understood. Fine. She could lip-read. 'Two others,' she signaled, forming the letters with her fingers. 'One a scientist, the other a barkeeper. I know them.' Again, my mind began to rotate around the choice of victims. I understood the scientist, but a barkeeper? What could the other men do? Mind-reading? Calculate faster than a computer? Understand binary codes? No chance to find out as long as we were separated like samples for a clinic examination under a microscope. I put the information aside for further brooding later. The small walls raised again. Time to exercise. * * * Time had no meaning. I didn't know how long I had to run, hardly managing the demanded speed, but I was finished the moment the walls disappeared. I breathed heavily, again hearing Scully's voice in my mind that sports and healthy food were necessary to fuel the body and the mind, too. I wiped sweat from my forehead. The belts and wires now had adjusted perfectly to my body fluids. Take away all the remaining pain, isolation, and maltreatment I could have been happy all over. I longed for Scully's comments on this. Maybe I'd been regarded as a solitary person for a long time, but I needed the exchange of thoughts as well as any other human being. And especially with Scully I enjoyed every conversation. But, of course, it wasn't only conversation. I always wanted her to be around. To watch her move, to smell her perfume. To see her smile. The thought of her being so far away, searching for me, but unable to detect me, saddened me more than I could tell. I needed her. Even if it was just a light touch from time to time. I wanted to go back to her, to hold her, embrace her, tell her how much she meant to me. I sighed about the futile wish. The 'arms' from above supported us with water and food, then left again. The woman - I read her name was Christine Rodgers - looked at me, pointing at her head then to me. 'Pain?' she formed with her fingers. I nodded wearily. 'I'm sick of it,' I answered in silence. She gave a light smile of sympathy, and again used her fingers to ask me, 'Any idea what this all means?' I let out my breath. The answer could have taken me an hour. Not that we were short in time, but I didn't know what to explain to make her understand. I just told her that the aliens let me know their actions were meant to be friendly. 'Really?' A big frown that almost made me smile. I was a believer, wasn't I? I should be able to convince her. She knelt on the floor, stretching her slim body. 'Could you then ask why they kidnapped us?' she quickly formed with her fingers. 'No, they just repeat the message.' She lifted her eyebrows. 'They probably want to learn about us,' I continued, 'information... whatever.' 'That's when you get hurt?' she added sympathetically. I nodded. 'Hurts like hell. - You had no experience like that? Voices in your head?' She shook her head. 'So I'm the first among equal guinea pigs.' She smiled wryly. 'You seem to be the only one hearing them.' 'They gonna smash my brain next time.' Her look was concerned and afraid. She sat back on her heels, thinking. Obviously she didn't care that she was naked. Well, I didn't care either. Being in an extreme situation like this, there were so many things far more important than being squeamish about our Puritan ancestors. Or noticing her sex anyway. Looking at her only reminded me of what the aliens had done to me, too. She was pretty, though, in a general way of speaking. No striking blonde with a model size waist you'd look after on the street. Her short-cropped hair was light brown and fuzzy, the bangs fell into her small, mouse-like face. She was slim, no more than 90 pounds. Small hands, small feet. She reminded me of an actress, but I couldn't find a matching name in my aching head. 'Any idea how we could get out?' Her fingers were moving so quickly, I wondered how often she had practiced this method to lead a conversation. 'No. I never had to escape from a high security prison.' Another wry smile. She exhaled, looked around to the other inmates, then at me again. The smile deepened. 'You seem to be the only one with a clear head.' I nodded a 'thank you' and gave back the compliment. Suddenly the walls of our cylinders started moving toward each other. A tunnel was created, stopped for a moment. The connection between the two prisons was made. I could see Christine clearly now. She had risen and backed up to the other side of the wall, terror in her eyes. The tunnel widened while the wall behind me shoved me forward. I stood and walked the distance to Christine's cell. The wall enclosed us both, until the cell was as small as before. Christine swallowed hard, waited a moment watching me and the other cells. No other two cells were put together, and it wasn't only Christine who thought about the meaning of it. I touched her hand. It felt strange and comfortable at the same time to be able to touch someone else again, and for a second, she shivered, but didn't retreat. She looked fragile, but I knew too well not to be misled by appearance. A fragile person would lie down on the floor sobbing and begging to be freed, unable to think straight. She was looking around as if there was more to happen. 'I know your name from the paper,' I told her and felt again miserable about the loss of my voice, 'but you don't know me. My name's Mulder.' 'First or last name?' she asked with her fingers. 'Both.' Another smile and a nod. 'Okay.' She opened her hands for a moment, then 'Any idea what that now means?' 'Maybe they understood that we don't like isolation.' She looked up in my face as if to say 'Speak for yourself, tall boy,' but she nodded slightly. Then, after a pause, a faint smile rushed over her face. She was blushing. Gave back the slight touch on my arm, my chest. Another feeling in me began to develop. In the back of my head I heard a voice calling me to resist. Still she rested her hands on my chest, intensifying the contact. There was no need to look down at myself to know that she aroused me. This was embarrassing as hell! 'I didn't mean that!' I stressed. 'I didn't want this to happen.' But her body chemistry was as easily affected as mine. She stood on her toes to kiss me gently. 'No!' I stepped back. Wild thoughts about having sex with Christine ran amok through my head. I focused on the fact that the alien probes in my body had difficulty adjusting to any kind of fluid in the first encounter. So if this was still valid, I'd be in pain all over, and my best piece would be ruined for the next months. No, I wouldn't want to take a chance with a stranger when my heart already belonged to one very special woman. Chris leaned closer, ignoring my entreaties to keep off me. And who was I to resist? She saw what happened with me. Her look was questioning, but nevertheless teasing me. 'It's too dangerous,' I formed soundlessly, but somehow neither she nor I could resist. I wanted to step back, to leave immediately. This was ridiculous. What had I gotten myself into? I didn't want this, but I couldn't restrain myself. And Chris wasn't playing Miss 'Don't-touch-me, please' either. Hell, what happened here? I tried to retreat again, tried to put my eyes on *anything* else than her naked body. She licked her lips. My heart pounded, all my body functions were locked on a one-way-street to mating. God, why hadn't I stayed in my comfortable little cell and kept to myself? Christine didn't look like a woman who would - dressed and all - descend on someone just for a one-night-stand. I wanted to go back, pressed my butt against the soft wall. Chris kept coming, lifting her head to kiss me again. Her look was seductive, her smile still mocking me and my resistance to agree that this situation could not be changed. I tried to focus on Scully, her beautiful porcelain skin, her red hair. I tried to tell myself that it was betrayal when I took another woman, but the thought didn't do any good. I didn't know where to put myself. Had I forced this? Was it my fault that Christine and me would be ashamed after we made love with each other? The walls turned into a milky white... for privacy? What a joke. I'd have laughed if my mind would have been able to understand. I couldn't think. Something was... driving me forward, into Chris' arms, against her warm body. She pulled me closer, kissed my neck, and I found myself kissing her lips. 'No,' I thought. 'No, stop. There must be a way...' No signs needed to tell me what she wanted. Her body language had all the answers. It would have been easier to get a friendly hug from Kersh than change the aliens' decision about our next half hour. * * * 35 minutes later. If the aliens could make my hormones run wild, what else would they do with me? Let me attack someone? Cage me with another man and make me kill him - just as an experiment in what mankind was capable of? This was an impossible situation. How could the aliens so easily arouse us? Make us feel like two lovers who have nothing better to do than sleep together? Christine looked at me - confused as if awaking from a dream. I knew too well what had happened. I could still hear my heartbeat and feel the sweat on my naked body. I swallowed. Even apologizing wasn't possible. I tried anyway, and Chris nodded. Her lips moved, she made gestures with her hands, absorbed in her own thoughts and forgetting that I didn't understand sign language. It crossed my mind that she was probably deaf and dumb. I held her hands with mine, stopping her movements. She wetted her lips, still trying to get a grip on the situation. 'I wouldn't have done this under normal circumstances,' she read from my lips. 'I'm not that kind of guy.' 'I know,' she answered, but retreated anyway. A few feet away the same little smile I had seen before appeared on her face. 'Like it,' she said with no sound, and I didn't need a translation for it. The walls began moving, forcing me back. We were separated again, and I disliked the idea. The walls remained milky white so I couldn't see Christine any more. Alone in my cell I sat on the floor, listened to my now slower heartbeat and wondered how our captors manipulated our brains. Would it happen again? Frustrated I looked at the wall. The cell seemed smaller than it was due to the now opaque walls. I felt caged - used and caged again. The walls raised so it was hard to see anything but the ceiling right above me. I was startled when the tube with water penetrated the wall. When the walls cleared after some minutes the cell where Chris had been was gone. Just another test of human behavior. Just one more point on the list they could now cross out. What else did they need to know? The pumping of adrenaline when two men fight each other? I was so sick of it all. And I feared for Christine. What would they do to her? Put her under a microscope to watch my sperm swim to her ovaries? Make a movie documenting the beginning of human life? I should have resisted and not brought her into further trouble. We were in enough trouble already without my manliness taking control. * * * They took me next. Two arms descended from the ceiling. I thought I could hear them, but of course, they didn't make a sound. One arm took hold of my waist belt, the other on the belt around my chest. They lifted me. I would have screamed, if I had had the ability to. So I just gritted my teeth and tried not to move *at all*. I was bathed in sweat when the arms delivered me to a metal table that had a damned similarity to those used for autopsies. I shivered uncontrollably. The arms got back, and at the same moment the belts fastened themselves to the table. I thought of magnetism. My arms were stretched out to both sides, and wrists and ankles were quickly fastened. 'A rat under a microscope,' I thought. I stared at the low ceiling. Shivered. More arms. More instruments I would prefer not to get to know closer. Were was I? An operating room? Their kind of surgery wouldn't appeal my already maltreated body. I feared what would come. Heart pounding I swallowed and stared at the loosely hanging arms. And felt my sight grow dim. I am far-sighted so whatever was further away than a newspaper should be easy to see. It got worse by the minute. I squinted, tried again. My vision blurred. And my heart hammered with the fear of being permanently blinded. No shouting, no contact was possible. 'No, please, no!' I sent, but no one answered. Until now I had still hoped they would release us and we could go on with our lives unharmed. Bad memories to cope with, but no physical handicaps. If the wires in my head ruined my eyesight my whole life would turn into a mess. 'Let me see!' I shouted in my thoughts. 'Friends we are!' came back with the same agonizing headache as before. 'No harm meant!' 'Then lemme go! Let *us* go!' No answer to that plea. The examination continued. They obviously wanted to gather more information about the intercourse Chris and I had had just an hour ago. * * * They brought me back. I curled up upon the floor. My abdomen was on fire from their scrutiny, and still I couldn't see more than shadows. The aliens said they didn't mean any harm, but their definition of 'harm' was the same as that of a serial killer. How long would it take them to kill me - all of us? Christine came into my mind, and I sat up slowly. Squinting I tried to figure if she was sitting there somewhere in a cell, but it was impossible to say. I crawled nearer to the wall, focused on the spot. Someone was sitting there, but I wasn't sure it was Christine. I tried to think straight, to go forward considering the situation, but all I came up with was 'I don't wanna be blind! Let me see again!' 'No harm!' the voice in my head said. I winced at the pain, but it was only adding up to the rest of it. 'If this means no harm, gimme back my eyesight! And let me go!' I felt blood oozing from my nose and reached up to wipe it away. I was exhausted, tired, frustrated and more than before - hopeless. The aliens could tell me heaven on Earth, but it meant nothing. 'No harm' implied a lot of hurting for me. And 'friends' wouldn't cage humans the way they did. They were monsters. No doubt about it. I closed my eyes and settled into a restless sleep. * * * No noise would wake me in this prison; the absence of any sound was loud enough to stir me. Used to sleeping on a couch with the TV set on, the artificial silence let me open my eyes, and made my brain work again. From the blur before my eyesight had improved. I could almost clearly see Christine bundled up in the adjacent cell. I was so relieved I could have cried. I squinted against the bright light from above, happy in one way to need to squint, but unhappy at the same time that nothing had changed during my time asleep. I sat up slowly, vowing to praise the day these awful wires and belts would come off. I hated being controlled. A picture of a Faceless Rebel jumped from behind my eyes. It was clearly visible, then vanished. Another picture of an alien - large head, dark eyes, long arms with bony fingers - appeared instead. I saw something flowing out from the eyes, nostrils and tiny mouth. Then it collapsed out of sight. A eye-catching picture, something out of the ordinary. But where did it come from? I knew for sure I never watched an alien go down like this. For if I had known how to kill one, I'd have done it myself long ago. I took a deep breath. Okay, the so-called friends placed these pictures into my brain while I had been sleeping. Fine. What for? Telling me about their friendly intentions? To whom? Us - mankind? Did they want to make me feel better that our enemies *could* be destroyed by... earthly bacteria like in 'The War of the Worlds'? I didn't buy it. Christine was looking at me. 'Pain again?' she formed with her fingers. The memory of me taking her in that cell hit me with guilt. I simply nodded, asking 'What about you? You okay?' 'As much as I can,' she answered with a smirk. 'I'm so sorry. What happened to you?' She avoided my stare. 'You don't wanna know.' Yeah, I could pretty much imagine what these sons-of-bitches had done to her. And I didn't want to remember what had happened to me either. 'New information?' she then asked. 'Pictures in my head,' I told her. 'Of other aliens being killed.' 'Others?' The question mark was the biggest sign she had made yet. 'How do you know?' Yes, how did I know? Did the alien rebels run this ship? Did they capture us? But they knew. They had found a way to avoid the Black Oil. The shapeshifter aboard didn't fit in this scenario. God, my head wanted to explode when more pictures presented themselves like a personalized slide lecture. Spaceships in battles with no sounds and no burning fires like in Science Fiction movies. There was no oxygen to be burned. The ships just broke apart. The rest floated away. With gritted teeth I waited for the end of the demonstration. More ships, strange buildings, dark halls with high ceilings, which I could vaguely recognize as those of the aliens who had kidnapped Scully a year ago. Machines destroying other machines, ripping parts of the ships' inside apart like a child making bread crumbs. In between aliens fleeing and breaking down, but no pursuer, no enemy chasing them could be seen. They seemed to flee panicky. I needed minutes to recover. 'We... you... help.' I felt tears streaming down my cheeks. Blood from my nose, too. I couldn't take it anymore. I desperately wanted these messages to stop. With all their technology why couldn't they find another way to communicate? I was open to constructive discussions, but not on the base of agony. I tried to tell those voices in my head, but I didn't know if I reached them. Christine stared at me worried. Her palms were pressed against the wall as if to break it to get through to me. I was on my hands and knees, unable to get up. I knew the continuing pain would kill me sooner or later. My brain wasn't able to cope with the input of information. And the rest of my body seemed to put out an 'out of order' sign soon enough. Christine moved her hands to gain my attention. Weakly I raised my head. 'Mulder, tell them to stop,' she urged. I just closed my eyes for a second. 'Don't let them destroy you.' 'I can't get through,' I told her before I collapsed, unconscious, on the floor. * * * I felt a soft stroke over my hair. A pleasant feeling after all the strange dreams I had had. The stroke continued to my stubbly beard, and slowly I opened my eyes. And saw Christine sitting next to me, trying a smile. I swallowed, irritated and, in a way, afraid. She pulled her hand away. 'What happened?' I asked. 'They made a tunnel again,' she explained, 'and brought me here.' The smile vanished for a worried expression. 'You look terrible. Still that pain in your head?' 'Not right now.' I tried to sit up. I hadn't recovered that much to jump and run, but at least the pain had subsided to a level I could live with at the moment. 'What else? - How long have you been here?' 'Don't know, quite a while. I watched you sleep.' Now it was me smiling vaguely. 'Not a pleasant sight, I guess.' She returned the smile. 'Any idea why they brought you here?' I asked. 'Company. Not being alone? You communicate, not me.' Yeah, right. I didn't want to think about it, but it was clear they allowed Christine to be here for a reason. She could read that from my expression. 'Another experiment?' she mused. 'I'm in no shape for...' I just raised my eyebrows, and she smiled honestly this time, looking pretty and inviting to be held in my arms. I pushed that thought aside. 'You okay then?' I asked. 'They didn't take me again.' Christine took a look around. 'No change either, if you mean that.' Yes, the aliens truly would have 'informed' me of any change. A look at my hands and arms made me understand what 'terrible' meant. I had blood all over my palms, and my face must have been a mess. I was glad no mirror was available. Christine suddenly raised her hands as if trying to defend herself against something. She frowned, knowing what the aliens could do to her. 'It's happening again,' she formed with her fingers after a few seconds when she had closed her eyes. 'No, not again!' I sent to our captors. 'I don't want this!' I knew that this demand would endanger me again, but I couldn't help it. 'Pleasure,' came the reply as if I were a stubborn kid who had to be taken at hand. 'No, don't push us again!' I protested. 'You of woman thought.' What kind of dictionary did they use? I hoped this wasn't taken from my brain, too. 'No, I don't want this!' 'No woman?' It sounded irritated. I didn't want this to go wrong and lead me into the arms of a *man* instead. 'Only if a man and a woman love each other they mate.' The walls vibrated as if asking for the next command. 'Let us be together!' I added. 'No one wants to be caged and isolated. We want to be free. Bring us back to Earth were we belong.' 'Friends. - We you help.' 'Against whom?' I transmitted though I felt my strength fade. The picture of the alien race was placed behind my eyes again. 'You can help us fight the invaders?' I transmitted though I didn't clearly know how I did it. All I wanted to know was how to end the pain connected with each message. 'Peace. We keep peace.' The connection broke and left me exhausted on the floor. And my mind spinning about what I had just heard. * * * The aliens allowed Christine to stay for a while without playing with our feelings. Then the wall split in the middle between us like cell division. I saw her back up, fear in her eyes. I felt the same. 'What do you want?' I shouted in my mind, but didn't get an answer. My part of the cell began moving in one direction alongside the field. Now I definitely was the hamster made to walk by a moving ball. I was shoved past other cylinders with inmates, who looked helpless, frustrated or even mad at me. It seemed to them I was released. I didn't give in to that dream. I knew somehow it wouldn't happen. They hadn't spent so much time on me to let me go right now. I was more afraid than before of what they had planned for me. The field was huge, and though walking wasn't hard, I wondered why they didn't carry me like before. Was it too far away to get me there? Or did they realize how much pain it meant for me to be carried like a puppy? The walk was long, more than twenty minutes I guessed, but that depended on my weak condition. And the view was always the same. I tried to shut my mind off, not thinking about all the people gathered here - and all the alien forces behind that big ship. If it was one. It could be space station or... 'No, stop it.' I was ushered into a room, where the light was dimmed. The wall around me simply fell to the floor like water and disappeared. No door behind me, no exit wherever I looked. The room was big as my living room, but with no furniture. And I truly preferred my untidy apartment to this extraterrestrial creation. I breathed in slowly, trying to calm down, but nevertheless I was shaking. More experiments? I needed my hand against the wall to steady myself. I swallowed, waited, thought about Scully, about Skinner, about Christine in the other cell and what would happen to her now. Would they take her away because I didn't mate with her again? Out of the shadows came a man. He walked slowly, distinctively. In the light I saw glasses shimmering and my first thought was, 'Why should an alien need glasses?' Then I recognized the man. It was my superior Walter Skinner. I let out the breath I had held. At least the man looked like Skinner. I wasn't that easily fooled to believe that it was really him. He matched him so disturbingly that I had to look twice. In jeans and knit pullover he didn't have his day-to-day look from the office, but I had seen him off-duty before. He was a perfect double. Suddenly my nakedness made me uneasy. "They chose me to talk to you," the man said with Skinner's voice. 'Fine,' I thought, 'and I'm muted.' And then I realized that the double was actually *talking* to me. The man stepped closer, reached out his hands for me. I stepped back the same moment, gasping, afraid of what he could do to me. I *had* seen shapeshifters, and the memory of their actions sent shivers through my spine. "Want to talk?" he asked impatiently. "Then let me take that collar." I swallowed. The wall was behind me, there was no place to run. I would lose the fight - before it even began. This was alien terrain. I obeyed or lost more than I already had. My sanity might be next. Or my head. Or... The false Skinner stood in front of me, reached around my neck and simply took the collar away. It landed unceremoniously on the floor. I cleared my throat, tried, "Who are you?" as an entrance. A little rusty, but still my voice. The wire in my tongue slurred my speech, but I was glad to be able to speak at all. "I have many shapes." And before my eyes he turned into Kersh and back to Skinner. I *was* grateful for that. "What's this all about?" I demanded next. "Friendship and support." 'Yeah, right,' I thought, 'and all aliens sit peacefully at the barbeque and play poker. - Leaves the question, what's on the grill.' "We feel your disbelief," the shapeshifter said, "but I can explain." "Explain abduction and torture to me! Explain why you took these people and examine them like rats in a lab!" He raised his hands as if to stop me. "Explain why you nearly cooked my brain!" "I ask you to wait, calm down, sit." From somewhere a kind of chair emerged. I could sit while the false Skinner stood. He looked at me, then away to the wall, and the expression on his face was like he talked to someone else. Or got instructions. His attention returned to me. "Races fight. Travel through space. Fight again. Take planets to colonize." "You mean the Invaders colonize and the Rebels without Face try to beat them?" My head again felt like an overload of information was coming in. No more memory capacity available. System failure. 'Mulder, pull yourself together!' "What's your part in this?" "They long time opponents. Been punished before. Fled. Searched for new planets to grow upon." "Both of them?" The false Skinner gave me that 'I'm at the end of my patience'-look and continued, "You name them Invaders. They came first. The Faceless Rebels found them, fought them. Humans as allies against Invaders." "So - they'd help us. And you?" I held up my arms, showing him the attachments. "You tortured me and the rest of these people. For what? Don't call that a help!" For a second I swore I saw a glimpse of a smile behind the glasses. He looked at the wall again, communicating with someone else in the ship. I had never thought of the shapeshifters as people who'd serve anyone. "You misunderstand." I started to protest, but he stopped me with his lifted hand. "You silent, I talk. I explain." He let me assure him with a nod. "We keep peace. We from all demand to keep peace. Accept they must other life forms without harming them. Co-existence is acceptable." I was about to interfere again. It all didn't make sense to me, but my head was filled with jelly, and my brain cells were taking a bath in it. "Invaders want to root out humans. Rebels fight them for their own cause. Humans they help with weak vaccine. Make them an ally this way." I looked at him puzzled. "We keep peace," he repeated. "Make Invaders and Rebels leave." "Why torture us then?" I demanded to know again. "You could have killed us all!" "No. Made sure you not on the same basis." Something twitched in the man's face, but I couldn't find a reason. "You mean that we are different from them - from the Invaders?" "Yes." I was furious. I stood up, powered by the rest of energy I had left. "Fuck! You could've found out easier than that!" "No. Best way - our way." Another twitch. A hint of a smile again that made me roar, "Your way? You bastard! You tortured us! You caged us! For how long was this planned? Weeks, months?" "Hey, step back!" He shouted with his hand outstretched. "I'm the man they hired to talk with you, got it? To stop your idiotic head from exploding or whatever!" I couldn't restrain myself, tried to attack the false Skinner. In the same moment my legs gave way. I fell on the ground. The shapeshifter hadn't moved at all. I winced at the pain in my legs and thigh. The attachments pulled me to the ground, seemed to lock themselves in. I couldn't get up again. "Sorry, this to happen." He paused, blinked and moved his head, then continued as calm as before, "We needed... detailed information. No harm meant." "No harm!" I spat from my poor position on the floor. "Is it no harm to set these probes, belts..." I gasped for air. The wires in my head hummed, causing another wave of pain. "...this *is* torture!" I finished the sentence. Then the wire in my tongue disabled me to speak. The shapeshifter squatted, pulling up the creases before he did. It would be a typical gesture of the real Skinner, and I was lying in front of him like a goddamned poodle waiting to be punished. I hated this. I hated those shapeshifters for simply being what they are. The alien, disguised as a man, was indifferent to my humiliation. I searched his face. Nothing. He just watched. 'Maybe the aliens use him like a marionette.' The thought seemed a plausible alternative. If they could hamper me from attacking that man, why shouldn't they use another race to communicate? Maybe he had some attachments under his jeans and pullover, too. And maybe it hurt as well. A thought I found just swell. I pressed my hands on the floor. "Lemme get up again!" I growled not willing to give in. My lower body was sealed to the floor like Han Solo to carbonite. The shapeshifter said, "Races like yours we don't harm. We only decide if co-existence is possible. Races mix. Some don't." "Kind of alien police or what?" I had to crane my neck to see his face, and still I thought that I could see a hidden smile in Skinner's expression. Still I fought what held me on the floor. I wanted to win. Just for once. "Police is no known word. We control. We decide. We allow or forbid." 'Sounds like some officers would define their jobs.' "Stop that. You hurt yourself." The no-nonsense voice of the shapeshifter, the displayed arrogance I heard and saw made me try harder. Without a sound - I just felt the pull - the belt around my chest, too, hooked itself to the ground, and my chin dipped into the floor, pressed the air out of my lungs. My teeth hit, and the pain left me dizzy for seconds. 'Great, just put yourself deeper in,' I thought wearily. 'You *really* are a negotiator.' The shapeshifter folded his arms across his knees. "I said: it hurts. Now listen." He explained in the typical Skinner manner that the alien race - we would say: police - had followed the Invaders and the Faceless Rebels. Given the tests they had done on their human prisoners, they had found out that the existence of both alien races on Earth would eliminate the present inhabitants, and decided to give mankind the chance to get rid of both the fighting extraterrestrials. Through me - in a way. They would display a unique weapon, but I'd be the messenger they needed. I had to follow their demands. "Help the humans we can to get the planet back. We know how. We needed your information..." He pointed with his index finger to my head. "...in there. You be thankful therefore, not angry." I swallowed, stared at the man. "Talk to you we tried... our way. Now we take this form-" The shapeshifter pointed at himself. "- to talk." 'Great - after you almost smashed my brain to hash browns! Boy, I'm grateful!' "No permanent damage caused. No one will suffer." I tried again to sit up. No chance. But the vibration in my tongue stopped. "When will you release us?" I asked. My tongue felt heavy in my mouth, and I could hardly understand what I said. The double did. "In a while. Some more tests..." I just stared at him. "...will be done. Then home you go." "All of us?" He nodded, and got up again. "Let me get up. Now!" The double took a step back, than nodded. I was released. Slowly I got on my feet. Swayed but stood. "Why the wires?" "Learning." I swallowed, but despite my disgust I was curious. The curse of my life... "The wires are... life forms?" 'Scully, I know, you'd give me your 'don't push it too far'-look, and I really long to see it.' "In a way, yes. Created life forms to serve us." "Like the rest of the ship?" "Parts of it." "The floor?" A nod. "Why... what," I changed the question, "about the woman - Christine? Why did you put us together?" He looked at me truly puzzled. "Mating is important to all races. You should know that." He collected the collar from the floor and got closer. "No - wait, not again. What's next? What kind of tests? What else do you want from us?" The double had reached me and simply put the collar around my neck again. Now I clearly saw a fuckin' smile on his face. * * * I endured their further scrutiny, and I can't clearly remember how many days they took, but I do remember being taken to the operation room again, for I almost peed in my pants if I had had them on. The aliens used their artificial or not-so-artificial arms to put me on the metal table, made me immovable. I feared the worst, but the first sting was the last. They simply knocked me out. * * * The memory of how I descended from the space ship - or space station or the biggest extra terrestrial life form is lost. Maybe they beamed me down or dropped me off during a short stop for newspapers and test objects. I found myself flat on my stomach with my face half buried in mud, smelling the humidity of soil. Smelling something at last! Eyes still closed I grabbed a handful of pine needles and soil. Coolness. I shivered, finally opening my eyes. Darkness. I slowly raised my head, trying to make out where I was. Outlines of trees, bushes, nothing more. Too dark to see further than a few yards. I looked at my dirty hands. No attachments any more. No wires penetrating the skin. Just dried blood around the holes. Another shiver ran through my body. I felt the soil prick my skin, risked a look. No belts anymore, but the alien 'forgot' to give me anything to wear, either. In the darkness I only saw the blood on my flesh. The extraction of the wires must not have been an easy operation. Maybe the life forms were disobedient to their masters and wanted to stay a little longer with Spooky Mulder. I was glad I couldn't recall a second of it. Exhaling I tried to heave myself up. Fell back, too weak. More stars than I could count danced before my eyes. My heart pounded. I swallowed. A voice in my head told me to get up, get some place safe, but I hadn't much of a choice. I wouldn't make it far. My teeth chattered, my hands and feet felt numb already. I put my palms on the ground again, breathing, gathering all the strength I had left to focus on the one task of getting on my feet. I made it to my knees, crawled slowly to the nearest tree, and bumped into it. I prayed to whoever might listen, that someone would, please, find me. I choked on my despair. The aliens had released me. I should be glad about it, up and jumping, but they didn't care about my well-being afterwards. I could die out here and become an X-file myself. Ridiculous. I wanted to go home, wanted to be where it was warm, and where Scully would embrace me and welcome me back, and tell me that everything was all right. 'Scully,' I thought, pressing my aching back against a tree trunk, 'I wanna go home.' * * * When I woke again I felt stiff, didn't want to move. I knew it wouldn't be an easy way. I felt a warm touch on my skin, though, and opened my eyes to the sunrise of a late summer morning - somewhere in the woods on planet Earth. The air had warmed, so that I wasn't frostbitten. I could clearly see my surroundings now. Giant firs, and pines in all sizes and heights. Birds flying from branch to branch, a squirrel rushing up a nearby trunk, frightened I might steal its breakfast. A wonderful day - if I'd known where I was. Back in Bellefleur? I wouldn't be surprised. Dropped where taken. Given back after use. Sorry, wrong product. Could I get my money back, please? Carefully I touched my head. Holes and dried blood. And still a headache that would make me an anti-alcoholic for the rest of my life. And... my fingers found a sensitive spot with no hair, but a metal-like device, not bigger than a quarter. 'No,' I thought, frantically fingering around the spot, only hurting myself, 'they wanna keep me controlled.' Furious I put my thumbnail under the rim - - and regained consciousness some time later. I moaned and listened to the pumping of my blood, each heartbeat a new shock of pain to my head. I desperately wished this ordeal would end. I had survived this far. Held on where others would have given up. Now there had to be the end. Why did the aliens leave me here in the middle of nowhere like a bag of bones you dump where no one will ever look? Didn't they want me to spread their intentions to help us? Was there help in sight anyway? I doubted that by now. So I could only get myself out of that mess alone. 'You're on Earth,' I assured myself. 'Nothing bad can happen to you now.' But my confidence was as genuine as a promise from Krycek to be a saint from now on. I used the trunk to pull myself upright, fought the nausea and looked at the sun to decide my way. I've never been a real outdoor trekking maniac, but I know how to follow a path. I was thirsty and hungry, but I had to cover some ground. If I was in the woods near Bellefleur, I had to head north to find the country road. I stumbled more than I walked, and I needed a rest every fifty yards. I made it to the road in the afternoon. On the verge of a breakdown with my head swimming in and out of reality, with thoughts about Kersh, shapeshifters, aliens, and other scum on- and off-world, I finally heard a car pass by. With a fresh shot of adrenaline I made it to the shoulder, knelt, waiting for a car to stop. I couldn't imagine what I looked like, but it must have been awful to say the least. But anyone to stop would be fine. Anyone who could take me to a hospital and a phone. In the distance, headlights grew large, came close - and sped up and away without noticing me. I let out my breath. I couldn't take anymore. Why me? * * * On some days everything fits. Perfectly. From getting up to working to dinner and nice dreams afterwards every detail falls into place. I knew people who thought this is the standard of life. I'm not that kind of lucky charmer. And I'm not the guy who is helped by a friendly widow, handing me a warm blanket and some hot coffee, brewed for her hard-working son, then driving me to the nearest hospital and giving me a friendly hug and best wishes for the rest of my life. I'm the guy who runs into a Highway Patrol car with two young officers, eager to find criminals, outlaws and other despicable persons who have no right to exist in *their* domain who pull their guns first and ask questions later, and who are extremely careful not to be harmed themselves. I looked up, and the pistol pointing at my head was... funny. Somehow. The face behind that weapon was dead serious. And I was in no shape for explanations. "Please, help me. I need to get to a hospital." My voice sounded as weak as I felt, and the second of the young officers gave me a concerned look. The other thought I was a freak who had escaped from a nuthouse. Jees, maybe I was. "Get up," the first officer ordered, and I repeated, "Please, I need your help. I was... attacked and left here. I'm..." I ran out of words. "Who are you? Where're you from?" What the fuck had I done to be pierced and scrutinized by silence-loving aliens calling themselves 'friends', and then run into a pair of greenhorned police officers who think I'm a perp of some kind? I just swallowed. No strength left. No more. I'd collapse any second now. The second officer put away his gun and helped me up, assisted me to the backseat of their sedan. "Maybe it's true what he says," he uttered in a calm tone, and handed me a blanket to cover me up. "We'll find out later. And who he is. - We'll take you to a hospital immediately," he added in my direction, and I nodded a 'thanks.' "And maybe he's just the man we search for," the other replied and slipped back in the passenger seat. He gave me a questioning stare, but I simply closed my eyes, enjoying the warmth of the car and the blanket. The car stopped, and I woke up, clear enough to realize I was brought into an ER. A nurse replied to my question that I was *really* in Bellefleur, and I thought about the aliens' very alien humor. Right where I started. But with a knowledge I hadn't even hoped to come back with. I demanded Scully as soon as the exams were done and my wounds taken care of. Weak but determined I urged a nurse to get me to a phone. * * * Her hand on mine woke me up. I opened my eyes to my beloved Scully, her smile and a "Hey, welcome back." I had no words to say, no promise to give, and no explanations. I struggled to sit up, ignored her demands to lie down. Buried my head against her breast, let her embrace me. Into her soothing words I was finally weeping. I was home. THE END Comments, helpful information and hints, please, to Timmy2020@gmx.de. I thrive on feedback!