From: "patfiler@hotmail.com" Date: 19 Mar 2006 12:00:28 -0800 Subject: Cinematographer Source: atxc Title: Cinematographer Author: Pattie Rated: PG Category: Narrative, Myth Arc. Spoiler(s): The entire series. Summary: Someone behind the tapes and hidden videos takes stock of Mulder and Scully. Feedback: patfiler@hotmail.com. Archive: Gossamer, Ephemeral, ATXC. This story will soon be at Pattie's Pocketful Of X-Fics. Others, just ask if you want it, please. Disclaimer: All characters of the show and The X-Files are copyrighted property of Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox Studios. Any original characters are mine. I make no money from this hobby, and intend no copyright infringement. Another day, another dollar. All I have to do is look and listen. Okay, so my wife and kids don't know that I'm a spy, a Peeping Tom, a voyeur. They don't know that I go over video and audio tapes for a "business" of sorts. So my pay could be called "hush money". It puts clothes on our backs and food on the table. You do what you have to do these days, right? Reels and reels of sound. Stacks of videos from all over the country and even the Hoover Building. I tell my family and neighbors I run a recording studio. Yeah, right. The two "stars" of my works of art are a short, red-haired woman and a tall, brown-haired man who just happen to be FBI Agents. Not all of my "videography" and "recordings" were taken by me personally. Some of the places my workmates placed cameras and microphones would make us look like perverts, but what the heck. "Get it on tape!" I was told. "Never let them out of sight!" Well, it sure beats picking up trash for a living. Who am I to judge the people who hired me? The subjects or "objets d'art" may have found one or two of our mikes, but that's just another occupational hazard, along with loud music and bird droppings. This shows they're both in the hospital for some reason. No, I think that's actually decontamination. Yeah, something about green little mites and a lumber camp. Their reports, from what I recall, sounded like the plot from a scary bug movie. Well, I guess there is truth in some of the things the movies show, too. Didn't I see a National Geographic show about creatures who live so deep under the sea that we're just starting to name them and study them? Well, it was the kids' idea to watch that after "The Little Mermaid" came out. The "Finding Nemo" movie did a lot to get them into that, too. Hmm... I AM paid to be here, so I suppose I should go through the archives and make sure everything is clear as crystal. Too bad about the lady's head and the guy's ribs. I guess that's all in a day's work for FBI Agents. That week was one rough week! Something about a "fight club" and twins separated at birth, or maybe not. Who woulda thought? Ah, now here's a classic. My, but aren't I sentimental! This one gets to me, but I do have a family to feed, so this is strictly business. Now if I were a critic for some network or paper, I'd be rating this one as a tear-jerker. Sound track is awesome! I had to put it all together from several angles, and three mikes. The big fibbie's apartment. (That was a cinch to bug. He's hardly ever home.) So anyway, the little lady's here to tell him that the powers that be at the Hoover have shut them down. That poor little redhead's in tears, and he isn't far behind her. He can't accept that she wants to move on from there, maybe going back to being a doctor as she always wanted to be. Now he's begging her not to shop helping him look for the things he wants to find out. They're close to 'The Truth", as he calls it, so many times here and way back. Look at that. Now he's saying she's kept him honest, that she's his touchstone, (and that hallway was so easy to wire), she can't leave him now that they're onto things. She says anything from here on in is personal, as far as any more snooping around and asking questions. (That means her sister, I think. Maybe it means him, too.) Aw nuts! The bee stings here, she goes into some sort of shock, and he was just going to kiss her! Damn! I was actually rooting for the poor sucker! You can't tell me they're not into each other. Me and the guys have been doing their motel rooms for a long, long time. They're out of town so often, my wife thinks I'm stepping out on her! Okay, so here's another one. Yeah, that was a good year. There they are in the office, puttin' it all back together after a fire. They managed to save a few things. And I know how he did it, where he had a lot of other stuff, but I was just putting cameras and microphones in place, so I really don't care about what's in his desk at home, or the mother lode of disks and paper in his bedroom. Listen to this one. Hoo boy, she's telling him about some guy she had an affair with. He was in the hospital dying, a little bit about her experiencing time slowing down, choices she made that led her to this point, then she falls asleep. Well, under the Budda is a mike. She falls asleep while he's talking to her. Than after that... Well, ahem, I have that on video... Sure hope the porno investigators never get me for that one. I swear the camera was only set up so we could get a gander of what he was reading late at night, after someone actually put a bed in his room. Mirrors on the ceiling, too. Now lets see... oh yeah! Their first meeting. He sees himself as "The FBI's Most Unwanted". She's there to see to it that he doesn't get too close to some interesting "Project". (They don't tell me nothing. I just do the dirty work and get on with my business.) She looks happy to see him, and he sounds like he's not happy to see her, but look at that. Yeah. Guess what happens eight years down the road. I know I'm zipping back and forth, grabbing them out of order. Hey, I don't really care. I mean, it's not like it's a soap opera of something, but a guy gets bored when there's nothing to edit! Nobody will ever see it in order anyway. I know my bosses, and I have a few tricks up my sleeve as well, as far as they're concerned. The things I've heard them say and the plans they have are something right out of an outer space movie. And you know, all the blowing things up, drugging folks and shutting people up is not going to make any difference when and if what they say is going to happen happens. So, here I am talking to myself again. Going over the "product" as we in the profession call it. Some day, I'm going to base a TV series on all this, and make a mint of money, because I don't believe a damn word about aliens, shape shifters, viruses or a "planned Armageddon". As for those two fibbies, well, maybe they'll end up like me and my wife. After all, there's only one author of life, and I think it's all better left to Him. Now, where did I put the military courtroom tapes? They're about the end of this job, and I don't have any new assignments! END