From: "Maureen S. O'Brien" Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 21:38:18 -0700 Subject: FlickFic: Darius (1/1) Title: Darius Author: Maureen S. O'Brien Archive: Gossamer and others, please archive Rating: PG-13 Category: V Spoilers: MOVIE SPOILERS! BEWARE! Summary: Darius Michaud's thoughts on his work. Disclaimer: Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions, and Twentieth Century Fox own The X-Files. Author's Note: What can I say? I liked the guy. This is dedicated to all the JAG fans who only came to see the CAG, all the Millennium fans who hoped he played Peter, and to Terry O'Quinn, who always reminds me of the young Robert A. Heinlein. ------------------------------------------------------ As we approach the helipad on the roof of the Federal Building, I can see my boys and girls on the scene. Kesey's coordinating, calm and cool for a kid his age. Good man. I get out, get his report, tell him to send the dogs through again. Twice with agents, twice with the dogs is procedure, followed by a painstaking human search of every nook and cranny. I check my watch. No, that phase won't be necessary. Part of me is glad for the boys and girls. Detail searches are a bitch. It's hours of sweat and toil, usually for nothing. But then, part of me realizes that there are worse things. Things that are going to happen right across the street. Real Soon Now. I walk to the roof's edge and look at that building. At the windows of the FEMA Temporary Quarantine Office. Soon all that will be a thing of the past. I scan it with my eyes, filled with the need to fix an image in my mind of this average building in its original condition. Then I see someone up on the roof. My eyes narrow as I squint a little to see her. A short woman with red hair. Special Agent Dana Scully. And since she's not really the type to run off with a wild hair up her butt, that means Spooky Mulder's in there, too. I can feel my expression tighten. Damn. I had been so careful to put all my boys and girls out of harm's way. Those two especially. Yes, they poke their noses in where they shouldn't. But that's a good thing in an agent. They'd been to Dallas before with the X-Files, helped us catch some killers. They'd done equally good work this summer since the X-Files closed and they were reassigned to a Domestic Terrorism squad. A militia case had brought their squad down here this week -- this week of all weeks -- and Mulder'd done some good profiles for us of the suspects, Scully'd shown the docs in the local chopshop a few new tricks, and I'd secretly wished to God they'd go away before it was too late. Still, it was useful. After They put the corpses in the FEMA offices, we could blame the whole thing on that militia group. Those boys'd killed enough people for real that I wouldn't feel guilty about tacking five extra bodies and a building onto their bill. Just as long as we didn't have to add two agents. I shook my head. Investigative instincts leading them right where the bomb really would explode? They really were spooky. I took another look at the other roof. Mulder and Scully were both up there, not looking particularly busy. I checked my watch. There was no way they could have found anything. So get out of there, kids. I open my mouth to call them on the radio, so they know the SAC's seen them slacking off across the street. Put a little fear of God into 'em. I close my mouth again. That'd just get Mulder arguing and Scully jumping to his defense, and we'd still be doing it when the bomb went off. There. They're going back inside. Good. They'll go downstairs and come back over here, and they'll be safe. Less than five minutes later, I get a call from Dana Scully. The fire trucks and the police cars and the bomb squad and I all rush across the street. I curse inwardly. What kind of idiot are They hiring these days? What kind of idiot would solder an agent in with a bomb and expect him not to have some way to call in? But then again, only Mulder or the Hardy Boys would have the dumb luck to try and buy a can of pop from a bomb. This is not an excuse for the people I work for. More importantly, it doesn't excuse me in my own eyes. I know what I must do. Scully is waiting for us. She's managed to evacuate the building in far less time than I would have thought possible. Good woman. Kesey gets the torch, and I cut through the door myself, while inside my head the clock ticks away. I used to be the best bomb tech in the Bureau before I got sent upstairs. The bomb techs from Mulder and Scully's squad have been taking me out every night, plying me with drink and getting me to tell stories. The rest of the squad tagged along -- even Spooky and the Mrs. For payback, I made them all tell some of their own. I even got Mulder to talk about the New Spartan case earlier this year. The others were fascinated. Like everyone else, they'd heard about the case through the grapevine and thought well of Mulder for it, but Mulder and Scully didn't socialize much back in DC. But they both wanted to learn more about the kind of guys who made bombs, and I knew more than anybody. Plus, They hadn't had to be on their backs all the time, so maybe Mulder and Scully had been learning to relax. It wasn't as if there was anything else they _could_ do. We get in, and the bomb techs and I take a look at the bomb. Ten pounds of astrolite, I say. A no-brainer. I already knew. I tell everyone I can defuse it, and they all believe me. Why not? Mulder protests the breach of tactics for a moment. I give him a direct order. Scully drags him off. I listen to them go back down the hall, and in the empty building, I can hear them go out the door. I'm alone with my bomb, the bomb I made especially to destroy this building. The bomb I shaped to destroy this building and leave the rest of the block almost untouched -- a brilliant piece of demolition, if I do say so myself. Making it went against all my principles, but the fate of humanity outweighed even the lives of even hundreds of innocents. Still, I prayed They'd find a better way. Terrorists are idealists, I think, and I'm that. And then there is nothing to do but watch the numbers count down. They're all safe now. All my boys and girls; all the civilians. All but me. -------------------------------------------------------------------- mobrien@dnaco.net http://www.dnaco.net/~mobrien/fanfic/ My fanfic http://www.dnaco.net/~mobrien/fanfic/archive/ I Was a Living X-File archive