Subject: Always in the Valley(1/1) VH by B. Radley From: unkranger@aol.com (Unkranger) Date: 1 Oct 1997 14:02:09 GMT Always in the Valley (1/1) by B. Radley Category: VH Rating: R for language, single, double, and triple entendres Spoilers: Maybe slight spoilers for Memento Mori and Herrenvolk Distribution: anywhere Summary: The Special Representative to the United Nations discusses certain issues with her superior. Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the X-Files belong to Fox Broadcasting and 1013 Productions. No profit is being made from their use. Marita Coverrubias was not harmed during the creation of this story. Apologies to Alanis Morissette for any mangling of song lyrics from "Right Through You" that might ensue. Author's Note: This hopefully harmless bit of fluff was inspired by Miki Akimoto and MustangSally. I don't use their initials so that everyone knows who to cast the first stones at.;-) Thanks for the inspiration and encouragement. Please send feedback to unkranger@aol.com. Always in the Valley B. Radley Marita Coverrubias slammed the phone back into its cradle. The sound echoed in her overelegant, cavernous office. *That asshole,* she thought. *That decaying, Morley puffing, hack-writing bastard. If he thinks that I'm going to sit here and follow his directives from the Fuhrerbunker like a good little minion, he's sorely mistaken.* She rose from her chair, picked up her briefcase, and stalked out of her office, ignoring the startled look from her gum-smacking, nose-ringed temporary secretary. The door to the outer office slammed shut, but not fast enough for Marita to miss the muttered "bitch" from behind the computer console. The insult had little effect on Marita, except to cause her already glacial expression to drop to sub-Arctic levels and to remind herself to ensure that the little twit's budding career as a punk rock musician was cut mercifully short. All that it would take would be this nasty little compound that the Consortium had developed as a sidebar to the Project. It wasn't exactly on the same level as making sure that the Bills never won a Super Bowl, but it did have the same satisfaction. *It's good to be Queen* she thought to herself as she walked out of the front door of the UN Building. She wandered down the streets of Manhattan, completely lost in her dark thoughts. After walking several miles, she realized that she was really lost. Not only was she lost, she appeared to be lost in a less-than-reputable neighborhood. "Great," she said to herself, "How come this never happened to Krycek?" She entered a small greasy-spoon diner and called for a car to pick her up. "Yes ma'am, Ms. Coverrubias," said the driver. "We'll get right on that." She could almost hear the sneering laughter in his voice. She sat down in a booth and ordered coffee. To pass the time while waiting for the motor pool to get over their yuks at her expense, she took out her laptop to compose some letters. She had to at least look like she was actually a Special Representative to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. It was hard to do, especially when she had no idea what the hell a Special Representative was supposed to do. As she stared at the screen of her laptop, one of the ubiquitous college students in the booth behind her went over to the jukebox and made a selection. The sounds of a high-pitched female voice drifted over to Marita. The lyrics made her stop. A slight smile quirked the corners of her thin lips. She cleared the screen of her computer and began to type. Memorandum To: Morley Boy From: M. Coverrubias, SRSG-UN Subject: Assorted Issues In our last conversation, you expressed reservations about my abilities to accomplish my duties in the Project. I must say that I have done all that you have asked in these last few months. Do you realize how hard it is to do some of the things that you have ordered? You think that all you have to do is to tell me to distract Walter Skinner and just send me out with a lollypop and a pat on the head? Have you ever tried to distract a single-minded, stiff-necked ex-jarhead like ol' Walt when he has a bee in his shiny bonnet (no pun intended, but since bee husbandry seems to be one of the shit details that I have been stuck with, I couldn't resist)? It ain't easy, snookums. At least I am getting some aesthetic value here. Those are some pretty broad shoulders that the aforementioned jarhead rests upon. You must remember "honeybuns," that if you are trying to use me as one of your puppets, just think about who has whose hand up their ass. You are not the biggest fish in that group of old white guys. Oh, yeah. While I'm on a roll here, please express my displeasure to those morons in the Identity Section. Don't you think that they could have come up with a better cover name than one that means "yellow cave?" Do you realize how many advances I have had to endure from the Spanish-speaking delegations at the UN? Every day some would-be Latin lover comes up and asks me if my name is true description of certain attributes. Not to mention the smirks, sidelong glances, and whispered golden shower jokes that I have gotten from those mental midgets in Security (when someone explained it to them, of course). Sigh. Oh, well, I guess it could be worse. Yes sir, Mr. Secretary-General, My name is Mary Sue Krotnitz from Hamtramck, Michigan and I am your new Special Representative. I really do see through you. I just wish that you would find someone else to work through your issues with one Special Agent Fox William Mulder. I am tired of playing go-between and string-puller with this nutjob who probably couldn't pass the psych screens for the DC Sanitation Department, let alone the FBI. Come on, this guy is more paranoid than Jesse Helms at an ACLU picnic. Do you realize how hard it is to fly down to DC on the shuttle in the middle of the night and stand around the Lincoln Memorial while some horny Park Ranger is offering me a lecture on Abraham Lincoln's recreational activities while looking down my blouse? All done while continuing to look immaculately coiffed and dressed for when Mr. Fox "Punctuality Exemplified" Mulder finally deigns to grace me with his presence at 3 a.m. I suppose next that you'll want me to seduce him. Well, no thank you, Masters and Johnson. This guy has more sexual hangups than an adolescent. First off, there's that partner thing. I really think that Foxy has something more than a sidearm in his pocket for that vertically challenged MENSA-member he calls a partner. Does this mean that I'll have to start using strawberry shampoo? Then there's that video thing. You honestly want me to try to jump the bones of a man who wrote in Linda Lovelace and Marilyn Chambers for Best Actress Academy Awards? Now we really know why he wears those glasses. I think that I'd almost rather seduce his redheaded partner, although recent surveillance and intelligence reports indicate that I don't have enough pierced body parts for her taste. Speaking of sex. In our last conversation you made mention of your displeasure at the fact that you had to make use of the Consortium's "discreet" medical clinic for something that you were ashamed of. Its amazing what you can get Dr. Scanlon to do these days. Well, before you cast the first stone, Smoky, you should recall that I mentioned that you were pretty low on the food chain in the Consortium. You should have looked closely at those "Well manicured" scratches on my back. Yes sir. Things will be different when *I* am sitting in that smoke filled room on 46th street with those ossified bastards making the world safe for those little gray men and, incidentally, your life a living hell. Can you say "beekeeping?" A tap on the window outside of her booth broke into Marita's pleasant thoughts. She looked up and saw her driver. *Oh, wonderful,* she thought. *They sent that grayhaired automaton who has all the personality of that glorified icepick he carries.* She stared wistfully at the laptop screen before turning it off and getting up out of her booth. She headed out of the diner and into the cold winter night. She really should have saved the memo. It would have kept her supplied with warm and fuzzy thoughts on many nights such as this, along with the vision of that same icepick sticking out of any one of her superior's body orifices. I always knew that shit rolled downhill, but why am I always in the valley? -attributed to a low ranking, anonymous government employee of the Roman Empire, circa 70CE