From: Max Soona <magicbullet@techie.com>
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 03:01:06 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: The Ender Series III: My Weakness (1/1)  by Max Soona
Source: direct

Title: The Ender Series III: My Weakness(1/1)
Author: Max Soona (http://members.nbci.com/themagicbullet)
Classification: T-Adventure
Spoilers: Nope
Rating: PG
Archive: Go ahead, just tell me first 
Feedback: Magicbullet@techie.com Liked it? Tell me and I'll 
continue the series, hated it, tell me and stop this madness before 
its too late!!!
Disclaimer: Frohike, Langly, Byers, Mulder and Scully aren't mine, 
if they were, I'd have a *lot* to deal with, and probably wouldn't 
have time to write a fanfic.  Yeesh, imagine the five of them 
mucking about in you apartment, no don't do that, you'll get 
distracted :)  But I digress... they're CC's not mine, though Ender, 
Michael and Jack are.
Summary: A mysterious e-mail brings the Lone Gunmen and Ender back 
to things they hoped they had left behind.
Author's Notes: I feel obligated to give "mad props" to my esteemed 
and accomplished arch nemesis, Star Tracer, always there to help in 
case of brain lapse (and owns the 'mind' that gets me out of title 
binds.) Get yourself an arch nemesis and write a fanfic today!  
Scary people = great betas, don't ask why, they just do :)


Part I
Ender shoved some things into her satchel and glanced up on the 
clock on the nightstand, 4:30 am.  It felt wrong to be packing her 
things.  Even though she knew she'd be back by this time tomorrow. 
Even though she kept telling herself it was no big deal, she knew 
it was.  If Byers, Frohike or Langly should happen by the door 
right now, they would probably be outraged beyond words.

It had been almost six months since Ender returned, or rather was 
returned, to the gunmen.  It was a little less than six months 
since Ender left the apartment alone.  After the first two months, 
it was clear that they trusted her completely not to leave, but it 
was the rest of the world they were unconfident about and as a 
result Ender always had an escort.  

The first two months had been rough, come to think of it.  It had 
felt almost awkward for a while at first.  They hadn't been sure of 
whether or not Ender might try to leave again, and there was 
nothing Ender could say or do to convince them she was staying for 
good this time except do just that, stay.  Adding to the tense mood 
of things was Ender's "death."  She had gone through with it, all 
of it, exactly as planned.  Annie "Ender" Wilson was dead to 
everyone but a small handful of people.

But slowly things began to feel right.  She was allowed to start 
hacking again.  It was glorious for Ender, to be able to hack for 
causes... not money.  Looking back at her time pad hoping, she 
shuddered thinking of the hacker lows she had sunken to in order to 
pay for her next meal, or replace an important piece of hardware.  
To be able to pull up a chair next to Langly's and expose some 
disgusting corporate creep for what he was brought back warm 
memories of being five and learning that her country was great, but 
most of the people running it weren't as she sat in Langly's lap 
tapping keys tentatively.  

It was the dream that had brought her to this.  She hated it; it 
marked off the stages of her life with clear, razor sharp lines.  
It controlled her, and had the ability to change her life in a 
matter of moments.  This in part was why she was about to do what 
she was about to do.  

The dream had been set in the same place, but this time as she ran 
through the field the feeling was different.  It wasn't the 
familiar terror that reached up from her stomach and wrapped its 
fingers around her throat but another feeling, equally disabling 
and familiar that filled her.  Apprehension may have described it, 
paranoia fit more accurately.

Again she reached the place where her father always was, but as she 
approached it, in the dream, Ender knew her father would be here... 
before she had always been surprised at finding him, but this time 
she anticipated it.  It was his condition that shocked her.  
Instead of dead, instead of decaying, her father stood upright 
looking down at her with a smile on his face.  But there was 
something wicked in his look, a coldness she couldn't typify.  And 
she woke.  Not screaming, she hadn't woken up screaming, or biting 
her lip for a long time now thanks to Byers.  But she woke now, 
determined.  Her father was alive, she knew that for certain, but 
she also knew that he wasn't the same.  She felt convinced that he 
was doing something horrible and that it was her responsibility to 
stop him.

And so it started.  Everyday in between tasks, Ender would search a 
little.  Look up names, and birth dates and job descriptions trying 
to find him.  Byers knew what she was up to right away, and 
approached her about it several times, she'd lie telling him it was 
research promising herself that she would tell him everything, from 
what she was doing now to what she'd done while they were apart, 
she'd even tell him about the dreams, as soon as this was all over.

She'd gotten an e-mail tonight, about an hour ago.  She knew where 
her father was, but it wasn't him she was going to see.

The door to Ender's room creaked open and she jumped, startled.  
Langly stood there looking confused and... betrayed.  It hurt Ender, 
even though she knew what he was thinking was wrong, it hurt her 
that he felt like this for even a minute because of her.  She could 
almost hate them sometimes for being so god damned self-less.  They 
were always putting her welfare in front of everything else.  And 
anything, even Ender's own actions, no especially Ender's own 
actions, that threatened her welfare, would enrage them.

She slipped the bag over her shoulder and walked up to Langly.  The 
confusion drained from his eyes and a stern anger was beginning to 
take over as Ender slipped her hand into his and led him into the 
computer room.  They walked up to a computer and Ender pointed at 
an image on the screen.  

Jack Wilson stood proudly accepting an award for achievement in the 
biomedical technologies.  It was dated a month ago.

"He's alive? I... I...You're going to see him Ender, I don't 
understand, what..." Langly paused; it was very rare that he couldn't 
relate to Ender's actions, in terms of personality, they shared the 
most common traits, "What do you expect to find Ender?" His voice 
was stern.

"You can't honestly tell me that you expect things to be..." if this 
is what she was thinking, the rest of the sentence could be 
devastating, he re-worded, "You think that he will take you in?  
That things will be like they were when you were... things never were 
ok, were they, you guys were always running and... and..." Langly 
gestured toward the screen, "and he's with them now, if you go 
back, Ender, if you go back, he'll turn you in.  You've done a lot 
more to hurt these people than even he has, and they won't let you 
lead a normal life.  They'll put you in prison Ender, we both know 
that.  You're too old to evade the charges anymore, a few more 
months and they'll try you as an adult."

Ender let him finish his speech, before explaining, "I know" she 
said calmly, "but".  She extended her arm again and pointed to a 
small image in the lower left of the photograph, a little boy.  
Langly read the caption, "Jack Madsen accepts his achievement award 
while his son looks on"

"I have a brother" Ender looked at Langly and continued, her voice 
shaking, "I have to meet him, I don't know why, but I do.  More 
importantly I need to stop him," she pointed to her father "from 
doing something devastating.  I'm going to get us a story."

"Let me drive you" Langly realized Ender couldn't be stopped.

"No, its stupid for me to be going, it's even dumber for you to 
come with me."

She turned to the door, but could feel Langly's stare on her back, 
and knew he wasn't satisfied, she turned around, "I'll be back, 
tomorrow, before this time tomorrow, I promise."  She kissed him on 
the cheek and left.

Langly stood in shock, unable to believe that Ender had just gone, 
and that he had not stopped her.  His mind cleared and he realized 
what an idiot he was.  He ran back and woke Byers and Frohike.

He managed to get the story explained to them quickly in spite of 
Frohike's strings of profanity and assurances that Langly was "the 
biggest moron on the planet"

They had filed into the van not ten minutes after Ender left.

End Part I

***

Part II

Ender recognized him from across the park.  He was sitting alone on 
a bench in the far corner paging through a book.  As she approached 
Ender saw the form of Harry Potter on the jacket cover and felt a 
little relieved.  She had hoped he was... well, normal.  It would be 
easier if didn't understand what their father had done.  Perhaps he 
wouldn't recognize her at all and she could just sit down and not 
say a word.

She got up to him and he slammed the book shut and slipped it under 
his leg.  As Ender took the seat to his left he glanced at her 
quickly before returning his gaze to some children playing on a 
swing set.

"Our eyes are the same" he spoke quietly.

Ender paused and glanced over at her brother's eyes, "Yes, they 
are, father has brown eyes though."

"He must carry a recessive gene" Ender recognized the matter of 
fact tone of voice she'd used an infinite number of times in her 
early age, as though they're was little wrong not only with what 
was being said, but who was saying it.  He interpreted her silence 
for astonishment.

"You didn't honestly expect me to be like...like"

"Like them?" Ender gestured toward the playing children, bundled up 
by their parents, running around with red noses in the late 
December cold.

"Yes"

"No, I didn't, I think that may be part of the reason I came."

"Why did you come?  To start a relationship?" Sarcasm from an eight 
year old, if all the physical likenesses weren't present, this 
alone would confirm them as blood.

Ender shrugged, "I think it was more to end one" They both knew 
Ender was talking about their father.

"He's different" her brother's voice trembled a bit, "he's not like 
he was, when you knew him... I think.  Nine years, nine years can 
change a man.  He made it, you know?  The vector.  Its done, and it 
hasn't been mentioned in a single medical journal, they're keeping 
it secret.  I tried to stop him.  When I was younger, I didn't let 
on that I am...smart, I still do kind of" he gestured toward the 
book, "He'd take me to the lab and I'd casually contaminate things 
when no one was looking, he found out though, didn't get angry or 
anything, just stopped taking me with him."

"Sometimes I think that it would be better if he hadn't refused all 
those years ago.  I mean, the end result was the same.  His first 
wife, your mother, would still be alive and you, your dead in a way 
too aren't you?"

"Only officially" she smiled, "but I don't regret any choices I've 
made, and not that its my place, but I don't regret the choices our 
father made, at least, the ones he made while I was with him.  
Besides, if this hadn't happened, you'd never have been born."

He looked at her wordlessly for a moment, as if to say that would 
not have been so bad.  "Its hard you know.  Knowing all of this, 
knowing and not being able to do anything.  Sometimes I think 
you're the lucky one, at least you can try to do something."

"I don't know your name."

"Michael" 

"I think it was selfish of me to come here."

"No, I brought you here, I sent you that article"

"What?  How did you even know that I existed, let alone was your 
sister?  And after you figured that out... Ender is..." she lowered her 
voice "I'm dead"

"I pieced together some clues, a photograph in our fathers drawer, 
a different last name on a degree locked in his safe, what he was 
working on and figured it out.  As for your death, I was just 
hoping at first.  But I watched the action on the Internet to see 
who was looking for information about father.  Just last month, a 
few systems reported outside users viewing files linked to him.  I 
got my hands on issues of Lone Gunmen and watched the writing 
style.  That piece on cloning gave you away.  I sent correspondence 
to each of the e-mail addresses on the paper.  Yours was the only 
one that didn't respond, you forwarded my message to someone else.  
So I sent the article there.  It was blind luck I guess."

Ender furrowed her brow, reached over her brother and slid the book 
out from under him.  He jumped, and for a moment looked frightened, 
probably conditioned to do so when someone threatened to look at 
his things.  She flipped it open, outside it looked like Harry 
Potter; inside it was "The Happy Hacker".  A beginner's manual of 
sorts, Ender recognized it immediately.  It was basically a lot of 
simple stuff, things that Langly had taught her a long time ago, 
but he didn't have a Langly to show him this stuff, did he?

"I've read a lot about you" Michael looked up at his older sister 
and for the first time she recognized the admiration in his gaze.

She laughed "Most of its not true" 

He matched her smile, "You mean you're not a robot?  I was hoping 
you were, then there would be a better chance that I was."  

"So you seem to be running things here, huh Michael?'  She smiled, 
"why'd you bring me here?"

He reached in his knapsack and pulled out a manila envelope, "Here, 
I can't do anything with this, but you can.  Hurry up though, they 
change this information every week"

Ender slid the envelope open, inside was a user id and password.

"To our fathers account at Biocorp.  All the information is in his 
account, and I'm sure you can access anything else in the system 
from there."

She stumbled, "This is... incredible.  He won't miss it?"

He shook his head, "Nope."

She smiled at him, "So that would make us a living argument for 
nature not nurture, huh?"

He laughed, "yea, plus I'm getting to see what I would look like in 
six years... if I was a girl."

She handed him back his book, "Hold still, I don't have any 
pictures from when I was eight."  She reached up and messed his 
black hair.

"You should probably get going," he nodded his head toward the 
street, "your friends have been parked there waiting for you since 
you arrived."

"Yea I know," she chuckled, "I don't mind making them wait, that's 
what they get for following me."

"Is that..."

"Yea that's the Lone Gunmen, you can tell by the beat up old car. 
If you look up real quick you can probably see Frohike duck his 
head under the dash."

"Thanks Michael" her brother looked at her, and then reached over 
and gave her a hug.  When he looked up again his eyes were filling 
with tears.

Ender stood up, "Maybe in a few years...you could come with me."

He smiled and blinked his eyes clear, "Maybe," he focused on 
something across the park, "You should probably leave that way" He 
motioned to a gate far behind them and away from the gunmen's car.

"Why?"

"Because father has just come to pick me up."

Ender turned and caught a look at her father, who was now walking 
hurriedly down the block toward them.  He must have seen them 
embrace.  Any closer and he would recognize Ender for sure.  She 
whispered "goodbye" before turning and heading toward the gate.

***

The Lone Gunmen watched the entire exchange on a screen in the van.  
Byers cursed himself for telling Frohike and Langly to hold off on 
getting that sonic ear.  The visual was enough for now though, it 
was pretty clear what was going on.  

Frohike noticed the worried look on the boy's face and the fact 
that Ender walked away, rather fast, in the opposite direction.

"Wait, what happened, she's not running from us is she?"

"She knew we were here the second we pulled up," Langly shoved 
Frohike away from the camera control, "Calm down Frohike, she 
promised me she would come back"

He spun the camera around and caught a shot of a middle aged, 
balding man with fading black hair breaking into a run.  He was 
headed down the block toward the van, or more specifically toward 
Ender and her brother.  Before Langly could look up from the 
camera, Byers had shoved the door to the van open and was outside.

"Byers" Frohike yelled sharply and then climbed out after him.  
Langly piled out of the car just in time to see Byers reach the 
man.  Byers cut into his path and stood his ground, the two were 
now eye to eye.

***

Jack Madsen, formerly Jack Wilson, stopped short and stared the 
bearded man fiercely in the eye.  If the girl he just saw hugging 
his son was who he thought she was, then this mans actions made 
perfect sense.  But Jack was still sure he was delusional.  His 
daughter was dead.  He had accepted that years before it was even 
announced.  But this all seemed to fit together too well.

The teenage girl with long, dark black hair, and piercing green 
eyes that you could see from across the park, was just sitting next 
to his son, whose deep green eyes Jack had often found a look of 
disappointment in.  And this man, in his perfect suit and well-
groomed beard, was blocking his path with an insane look in his 
eyes.  That was the kind of look a man only got when someone he 
loved was in danger.  He didn't even have so much as a description 
of the men he'd left Annie with, but for some reason he was 
confidant that this was Byers.  

Two more men came climbing out of the car the first had emerged 
urgently from and Jack was now positive that his son had just been 
talking to his daughter.  This conclusion sat in his mind for what 
felt like an eternity, as he stared Byers in the eye.  His first 
reaction to it was outrage, "How dare this man have the audacity to 
stop me from seeing my daughter?!".  But it faded, in what was 
perhaps an instant of real time, as Jack realized why he'd begun to 
run after her.  His first thought had been that Michael was giving 
up information, his second was of stopping them, and his third had 
been of finding a phone to call his superiors and tell them that 
Annie...no Ender was still alive.  They've really trained me well 
he thought.  He finally looked past Byers to the bench where his 
son still sat.  His daughter had disappeared from vision.  He 
returned his stare back to Byers but this time with a different 
message in his eyes, a wordless resignation, and an implied thank 
you.  He extended his hand, and after a moment in which the he 
stood confused, Byers shook it.

He walked past the men, now casually approaching his son.  "What 
have they done to me?" He felt like collapsing to the concrete.  
"They turn me into this, this thing, I see my daughter for the
first time in nine years and the first thing I think to do is turn
her in.  They give me this woman to love, and eventually marry, and
I can't help but trust her cause I needed someone that bad.  They 
give us this son, this brilliant child, as smart as Annie was, to 
remind me of how horrible I am everyday, and prevent me from being 
able to end it all at the same time."  It was his daily affirmation
of self-loathing, even in thinking these self-pitying thoughts he
hated himself more.

He wouldn't tell anyone he'd seen Annie.  He wouldn't even ask his 
son who that girl had been.  

End Part II

***

Part III

Byers pulled the van around the corner, careful to obey all the 
traffic laws that applied while driving near a park, after Ender's 
father and the little boy had gone out of sight.

Ender was sitting on a park bench that was on the outside of the 
fence, facing the street, cross-legged with her computer open in 
her lap.  It was a decrepit old machine, and Byers had often 
considered getting rid of it, she had a very nice desktop she used 
most of the time at home.  The laptop seemed too convenient for 
flight; he always asked himself why she would bother with a 
portable computer if it were no good.  

He pulled the car into a parking spot right in front of Ender.  He 
had felt physically ill when Langly had told him what had happened 
this morning, but now he was not sure how he felt.  It was still 
unclear to him whether or not Ender had intended to return.  He 
supposed he was about to find out.  He cast a glance at Ender as he 
took his seat belt off and prepared to get her.  

Ender looked up and smiled toothlessly for a moment upon seeing the 
van.  Before Byers could open his door, Ender had closed her 
laptop, put it away, slid the back door open and sat in the 
backseat.

"Hey guys"

No one answered her; Byers buckled in and started the car.

Ender slammed the door shut, "Guys..." there was still no answer.

She sighed and sat back, pausing for minute before reaching for her 
laptop again as Byers pulled the car out of the parking spot.

Frohike turned around and glanced at her, she let her hand fall and 
resigned to sitting quietly for the duration of the trip instead of 
hacking away at her computer.  It didn't make any difference; she 
couldn't do much without a modem.  

Everyone in the car continued to be silent.  Ender saw the lecture 
coming from a million miles away, heck she could hear the three of 
them in her mind even as she left this morning.  She just wished it 
would start already.  Well sitting quietly didn't seem to be doing 
anything, might as well provoke them...

"What are you so mad about? I told Langly..."

"You told him because he caught you sneaking out!" Frohike yelled, 
nearly causing Byers to steer them into oncoming traffic.

Bingo, that had worked precisely as planned.  Ender shrugged and 
lowered her head a bit, "yea, but..."

"But NOTHING!" Langly exploded, and then clamped a hand over his 
mouth, looking shocked. "I sound like my father..." he murmured 
from under his hand.

"I needed to do this, and I needed do it alone.  You would have 
insisted upon coming if I told you, or worse yet, refused to let me 
go at all..." 

"That doesn't matter Ender, its common decency to at least tell us 
before you do something stupid like this.  We still came, sneaking 
off in the middle of the night didn't change that." Frohike turned 
to face her

"Yea you came, and look what happened, he saw all three of you.  
Talk about a screaming confirmation of the fact that I'm still 
alive."

"I think actually seeing you walking about was enough to convince 
him of that, and if Byers hadn't slowed him down a minute, I'm sure 
somewhere it that nice long conversation you two had while you 
waited for the feds he would have figured out that you aren't 
dead!" Byers were still conspicuously silent, leaving Frohike to 
take charge of things. 

"Fine your right then, I should have told you, I was being 
irrational, I was putting my own life in danger..."Ender droned off 
the lecture standards.

Frohike turned to Byers infuriated, "She's hopeless! You may as 
well pull the van over right now and let her out!"

"No! I didn't mean to leave for good! I was just going out to get 
some information, I was coming back!" 

Frohike inhaled and started to turn around but was halted by Byers' 
voice.

"Enough Frohike"  

The rest of the ride was silent.

***

The van pulled up in front of headquarters and Ender slipped her 
satchel around her neck before following Langly and Frohike inside, 
Byers brought up the rear.

She stood in the main hall-like area constructed by rows of wire 
Shelving, pulled a manila envelope out of her bag, handed it 
wordlessly to Langly and than head for her bedroom.  

Langly and Frohike bent over the file, but Byers opted to follow 
Ender into her room.  He arrived seconds after she had and found 
her sitting on the far edge of her bed.  He walked over.

"Frohike didn't mean to yell at you like that, you just, really 
scared all of us"

"Yea, I know" Ender answered Byers sincerely, "I knew you guys 
would be mad, expected it.  Don't apologize though you had every 
right to be."  She rubbed her eyes and sighed, "That little boy..."

"He's your brother, huh?"

"Langly told you guys I guess, yea he is.  Half brother...I guess"

"Is he..."

"Yea, whoever they mated my father off with wasn't enough to break 
the Wilson curse.  He's just like I was."

"Does he know about what your father has done?"

"He contacted me about it.  It took him a lot of searching, but he 
found me." She paused, "He's miserable you know."

"I can't be that bad"

"He looks up to me of all people, that's pretty bad."

"Eh, there are worse role models for a little kid" Byers smiled 
innocently.  

Ender chuckled, "You should have seen him there with his little 
hacker guide hidden behind a Harry Potter book jacket, telling me 
how much he's heard about me.  It was... it was weird"

"You'd think, that I would envy him, he has a normal life, with a 
mother and a father.  He's got all the things that I hoped for when 
I was his age, when I was away from you guys.  But...but I don't.  
It's not fair, that he's stuck there like that; he knows about the 
project and really can't do anything.  His only hope was to contact 
me.  That file I gave Langly, he gave it to me.  Its more than 
everything he needs to get into the Biocorp computer system."

Byers was in awe, "that's, that's..."

"Its great, its incredible.  But for some reason I feel sick.  My 
little eight year old brother handed me the key to destroying my 
father, and I wonder why I feel ill" she smiled, "But it has to be 
done."  

Ender stared at her palms, "what do you think will happen?"

Byers shrugged, "I don't know, most likely he'll go to jail.  
They're really isn't much precedent for this sort of thing.  We 
don't have to do this, you know, if you don't want to."

Ender laughed, "Millions of people would die just because I didn't 
feel like doing this."

Byers sighed, and tried to find the words to convince her that the 
lives of millions weren't on her shoulders.

"Plus," She turned to Byers and he noticed for the first time that 
her eyes were red and teary, "I'd be letting my little brother 
down."``

Byers paused searching for words again, and then he simply took a 
step toward Ender and wrapped his arms around her.

After a few seconds he knelt down in front of her and took her head 
in his hands, "If you want, we can do this.  I know you haven't 
slept in at least two days.  You could go to bed now, and by the 
time you woke up, it'd be done."

Ender smiled and shook her head "Just like you Byers, always try to 
get me to go to sleep when the important stuff is about to happen."  

Byers smiled back and kissed her on the forehead, "Ok, you got it, 
this ones yours"

She stood up and wiped the tears from her cheek, "Good."  She led 
Byers out of the room to where Frohike and Langly were standing 
over the file she'd given them.  

"Ender, is this what I think it is?" Langly was amazed.

"Yep, and this ones mine, hand it over Goldilocks" She smiled and 
snatched the paper from his hand and then leapt into a desk chair, 
with the precise velocity and direction to have it roll directly in 
front of her favorite computer.

Ender cracked her knuckles and set her hands to the keyboard.  She 
took a deep breath and for the next five hours the only sound in 
the office was a constant stream of tapping as her hands flew 
across the keyboard.  

Langly, Byers and Frohike stood behind her, more shocked by each 
file she turned up.  Ender didn't seem to be phased, she saved and 
moved on with lightening speed.  Byers was sure she would have 
stopped when she called up the test subjects.  They apparently 
hadn't been able to stop this one before it got into the human 
testing stage, there were some pretty gruesome photographs, Byers 
almost stopped her himself.  Ender just shuddered ever so slightly, 
saved every one of them, and continued on.

***

She tapped the final period on the article with her forefinger and 
finally removed her hands from the keyboard, rubbing her eyes and 
lowering her head.  Her audience read the final line.

Byers placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently.  
Frohike pat her on the back.

Langly smiled in awe, "Damn good work, I'd say your Kung Foo was 
the best but then, you did learn from a master."

Ender cast him a tired grin, "its not done yet, one more thing."

She scanned to the top of the page and very carefully and 
meticulously typed the byline, Annie "Ender" Wilson.

"You can't do that, you're dead, remember?" 

Ender nodded, and then added, posthumously.

Byers nodded, "That's better, good work Ennie, we'll make this the 
cover story for this weeks issue.  I'll take it to the printers.  
Langly, e-mail the article and the files she got to a few choice 
politicians, newspapers and stations, ok?  Make sure this gets seen 
everywhere."

Ender stood up and stumbled, Frohike caught and supported her.  She 
was extremely fatigued.  

"Yoah there shorty, man you really need some sleep huh?"  

Ender smiled and nodded, "Enjoy it while it lasts Frohike, a couple 
more months and I'll have a fine view of your bald spot."

Frohike chuckled and lead her into her room, "Listen kiddo, I'm 
sorry I yelled at you before, its just that..."

"Don't worry about Frohike, I had it coming." 

He sat her on the bed and kissed her forehead, "get some rest now 
ok?"

She nodded wearily.  

Byers walked in past Frohike as he left and pulled the blankets 
over Ender, who seemed physically incapable of doing so herself.

"I have a lot of stuff" she yawned, "that I've been meaning to tell 
you."

He kissed her on the forehead, "when you wake up Ennie, don't worry 
about it."

She rolled over and slept almost immediately.

End part III

***

Part IV

"I hate to admit it" Langly was sitting at the kitchen table the 
following afternoon, shaking his head, "but she pulled some stuff 
last night that I've never seen before, I wonder where she learned 
that."

Frohike laughed, "Finally coming to terms with the fact that 
someone's Kung foo may be better than yours?"

"Yoah, lets not go that far.  You're forgetting of course the 
little incident about seven months ago, I kept her out of our 
system didn't I?"

Byers cast Langly an angry stare; he didn't like to talk about 
that evening too much. 

Ender walked in, wearing the same clothing from yesterday that she 
had fallen asleep in, just in time to catch Langly's boast.  "

The way I had figured it, all three of you were banging 
away at your keyboards trying to keep me out of the system, and you 
were only successful because I pulled."

"Ah" Frohike sighed, noting the hour, "at last it adopts a teenage 
sleeping schedule."

Ender smiled and took a seat at the kitchen table.  Byers barely 
resisted openly thanking Frohike for changing the subject and 
sighed with relief, apparently too soon.

"But then," Langly continued, the teasing tone no longer present in 
his voice, "you e-mailed us.  Why bother to go to all the trouble 
of trying to hack in securely and then send us a completely traceable 
e-mail?" 

Ender's face went a little pale.  In the past six months no one had 
talked about the confrontation that evening or Enders seven or so 
years away.  Byers could tell Langly was about to bring up both issues.

"I was ditching the pad anyway" Ender replied quietly and quickly 
before standing up and opening the refrigerator door. 

Byers wished Langly would shut up now, "leave it at that, please" 
he begged with his companion silently.  He knew what was coming 
next, Langly's next comment would be a statement of a fact that 
they had all accepted but never gave voice to.  Ender returned to 
the kitchen table with a glass of orange juice.

"You wanted us to find you."  Langly stared into Ender's eyes.  

Ender furrowed her brow, "I suppose I owe you guys a story, huh?"

Frohike and Byers both sat down, and Langly nodded sullenly.  

"After I found the file, I hacked myself a seat on the next 
greyhound to Massachusetts" Ender spoke softly but confidently, 
she'd mapped this conversation out in her mind a few times, "Some 
of Langly's D&D buddies went to MIT.  I got there and they didn't 
seem to think it that odd that I was hanging out.  They helped me 
work the system at the school so I could stay in one of the empty 
dorms and sit in on classes."

"And they didn't try to contact us?" Langly interrupted, a little 
upset that it was his friends that had help Ender hide for so long, 
even though he had always expected it.

Ender didn't imagine this conversation with interruptions and she 
was fazed a little, "I... told them it was a security risk, they 
understood."

"What did you do for food, and money?"

Ender sighed at Frohike's question, "When I was on campus that was 
no problem, people took me to the cafeteria with them most of the 
time and I used their meal cards when they went out to eat.  I got 
some work from a couple of people, programming and stuff, most of 
my employers never saw my face."  She tapped her fingers on the 
table, her second pad was easy to talk about, things on the college 
campus were pretty good, from here on in things got sticky.

"I left MIT after about 6 months.  It was too risky for me to hang 
out there over summer break, even though they had class in session.  
I followed one of the students there back to her pad in California.  
Jobs for un-schooled eight year olds were scarce in Silicon 
Valley."  She rubbed the back of her neck, "I, uh, hacked for hire 
then..." She bit the inside of her cheek and paused a minute hoping 
they wouldn't pursue that issue any more, she really hated doing 
some of the things she did, and didn't think she'd be able to tell 
them.

Langly winced a bit; he knew what it was like to be "for hire" and 
in serious need of dough.  He tried not to think about the things 
Ender probably had done.

"I pretty much moved around every three months or so after that.  
For about a year, I just followed whoever was leaving a pad to the 
next one.  After that I was pretty well connected and could go from 
pad to pad without question."

"When I was ten, there was a run in with a couple of guys that 
weren't the noblest blokes on the planet."

Frohike listened intently, making causal note, as he always did, of 
the British slang that sometimes slipped into her vocabulary, he 
suspected that her time spent in England would be the next topic.

"They figured that if I was wanted so bad, there must be a reward, 
and called in a tip to the government.  Luckily not everyone in the 
pad was as greedy as they were, either that or they were angry 
because they didn't cut them in on the deal. Some people overheard 
them planning and tipped me off.  By the time the feds showed up 
the only ones left in the pad were the two that called them.  
They got it good... wound up taking the charges for every exploit 
that the feds could trace to the pad, and a few that they made up."

"So I slipped out of the country after that, first to Canada for 
about two weeks and then to Japan.  It really wasn't the best of 
moves, considering I didn't speak a word of Japanese, but I found 
enough people who spoke English and picked up enough of it after a 
few weeks to get by.  I stayed there for a couple more months, and 
then moved around between China and Korea."

"You mean to tell us you speak Chinese, Japanese, and Korean?" 
Frohike didn't believe her; in his mind he saw her heading straight 
to England and staying there for the next four years.

"And a little Russian, French, and Spanish.  Nothing remarkably 
fluently though, a little bit of everything will get you along 
fine." She sighed not thinking her language capabilities worthy of 
note, but Byers and Langly were both blinking in awe.

"So needless to say, I spent time in France, Spain, Russia and a 
few of those countries around it, Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, and 
the like.  And finally followed a job to England when I was 
thirteen.  I spent a year there moving around all over England and 
a bit into Scotland, Ireland and Wales.  I was only in London 
temporarily when you sent that e-mail.  I had actually overstayed 
my welcome there, there was this one job that, uh..." Ender paused, 
"It crossed the line a bit, and I bailed, kind of in the middle of 
things, much to the displeasure the individual who had hired me.  I 
was planning to hit Australia, believe it or not."

"But you came to the States." Byers finally spoke.

Ender nodded and swallowed, "I..." she paused and looked up at the 
three men opposite her, "I was tired, I don't think I knew what I 
was doing, or where I was going.  I just got on a plane and wound 
up in my home town."

"You guys know the rest I think, bookstore, psychotic FBI agents, 
etcetera, etcetera."  She smiled and stood up, placing her now 
empty glass in the dishwasher.   

"Wow" Langly turned in his chair toward her, "I never imagined you 
got around so much, I thought...well it's just that we got all these 
tips about you being in the US"
 
Ender shrugged and shook her head, "I don't know anything about 
those."

There was a moment of awkward silence; they had been quite frequent 
over the past sixth months.  But in the past they came up whenever 
this issue was alluded to, Ender had just beaten the issue into the 
ground, sure, she had definitely left some big holes in her story 
and Byers suspected that there were quite a few painful events she 
was choosing to keep to herself, but she had completely opened up 
to them.  He hadn't seen it coming, in spite of the fact that she 
told him last night she had things to tell him.

Ender broke the silence, "You get the issues out?" She walked over 
to Langly not paying enough attention to give her the necessary 
time to evade the headlock and noogies.

"Yea, no thanks to you." Langly smiled and finally released her.  

"Sure you can sleep till four and no one traps you in a headlock 
and softens your skull."  She shoved him in the shoulder.

"Eh, that's because we're afraid we might loose a hand if it gets 
to close to that hair of his." Ender chuckled at Frohike's insult.

"Oh great, now you're teaming up on me, huh?"

Ender smiled and head back toward her room, "I'm going back to bed, 
there's only so much of you guys I can take in a given period," she 
joked.  

***

"Well that story was full of more holes than Kennedy's autopsy 
report" Langly commented dryly over his cup of coffee after Ender 
had left the room.

Frohike stood up, walked calmly over to Langly and smacked him 
upside the head.

"OW!  What was that for?!"

"What the hell did you do that for?"

"Do what, you're the one who just attacked me!" Langly rubbed the 
back of his head.

"Why did you ask her all of that?!  We're supposed to bring her 
back into things slowly, she doesn't need you provoking her... god 
knows how far you set us back!"  

Byers leaned back and resigned to letting his companions bicker, 
Frohike was voicing his own opinion and he was damn eager to hear 
Langly's explanation.
 
"I didn't provoke her! I just asked a simple question, I wanted to 
know, and she would have never told us otherwise."

"You don't know that, besides is it really any of our businesses 
what she's been up to?"

"Hell yea it is!  We at least have the right to know where she's 
been these past eight years."

Frohike sneered at Langly and Byers shifted his weight to his left 
foot.

"But that's not why you're mad at me Doohickey, you're going to 
blame me because it was my friends she stayed with at first.  You 
don't really care that I asked her about that stuff, you just 
didn't like what you heard." Langly stood up and met Frohike eye to 
eye.

After a few seconds Frohike backed down, "I didn't like what I 
heard, yea that's true, but it's what I didn't hear that upset me 
the most.  If that's the stuff she told us, what did she choose to 
edit out?" 

Frohike and Langly both turned to Byers.

"What?  You think I know?"

They continued to stare at him for a few more seconds, as Byers 
became increasingly more uncomfortable, all of the stuff she had 
just told them was news to him, he didn't know anything else.

"No" Frohike sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, "I guess you 
don't know.  But if she's ever going to tell anyone, she'll tell 
you."

Byers turned a little red, and stumbled over the beginning of his 
next sentence.  Langly interrupted him.

"Frohike's right, sure we're all close with Ender, but you're the 
closest."

Frohike nodded, "You're the one the she ran to whenever she had a 
nightmare" 

Byers swallowed, "Agent Scully said we shouldn't do anything... she's 
in a fragile state and..."

"That was sixth months ago, and we've been taking things very 
slowly.  Its time she got all that stuff off her chest, for one 
it'll be good for her.  I think she wants to tell someone... but that 
kind of stuff isn't something you announce to an audience." Frohike 
glanced at Langly sharply, "She wants to tell you Byers, I can 
tell, all you have to do is ask her."

Byers stood in deep thought, a few seconds ago he had thought that 
Frohike would be on his side while he watched him chide Langly for 
prying.  Now he was hearing something completely different. 
Frohike's pretty much wise and reliable "advice voice" was telling 
him to pry.  He was right though; whenever Frohike got like this he 
was always right.  He and Ender were the closest; from day one he 
had considered her like a daughter to him.  Frohike sealed the 
argument,

"You know she thinks of you as her father buddy."

Byers' eyes stung for a moment and he lowered his head as he 
remembered that morning six months ago when she had called him Dad. 
He looked up, nodded, and left the room. 

***
Ender had just pulled a clean t-shirt over her head when someone 
knocked on her door.  She turned around, 

"Yea? Come in." She was feeling pretty good considering the recent 
events.  It had felt ok to tell the guys about that stuff, well 
some of that stuff.  Combine that with the weight lifted off her 
shoulders when she finished that article last night and she was 
walking about with a little more spring in her step than usual.  
Well a very little more, she still had plenty of weighty days ahead 
of her, waiting for a response to the news the gunmen had helped 
her break to the world.  

Byers opened the door and stepped in.  

Ender looked up at him at swallowed, she knew exactly what he 
wanted, damn it.  She had felt a little relieved when she wasn't 
followed down the hall.  The five minutes or so that had elapsed 
after Ender left the kitchen had made her confident that that was 
all the story telling that there was going to be today.  But the 
look on Byers' face told her that it had only just begun.  The 
three of them must have been arguing over whether or not to pursue 
this anymore.  Ender smiled to herself, the gunmen often held 
meetings to construct a game plan for dealing with her when she was 
younger.  Well it seems they have come to a conclusion, and elected 
Byers as their emissary.

She dropped her shoulders, sighed and sat at the edge of the bed.  
She knew she promised herself that she would tell Byers everything 
after she had gone to meet her younger brother.  But everything was 
a lot, a damn lot more than he probably even expected, and 
everything...everything was going to hurt.  Ender felt her chest 
tighten and a lump was already forming in her throat.  She was 
going to tell him everything, every last bloody thing, damn it all.  

Byers sat down next to her and placed his hands on his knees.

"Here for the rest of the story?" Ender turned and looked at him.

Byers met her eyes, raised his eyebrows and nodded.

"I did anything for money, hacked personal systems, stole credit 
card numbers, destroyed important files... evidence and quite a few 
entire systems.  I dug up information, buried information, altered 
information and framed other hackers.  I worked for some of the 
lowest scum on the planet."

Byers didn't have time to get a sentence out.

"I slept on floors, ate junk, I'll never outgrow Frohike because I 
am pretty much addicted to caffeine, and was sick ALL of the time.  
And no one cared.  A lot of people hated me, were jealous, others 
thought I was an arrogant little twerp, some people were out for 
revenge because my last 'job' screwed them over."

"People have tried to drug me, people have tried to kill me... a few 
people have hurt me..."

Byers clenched his teeth as he felt rage build up in his throat.  
He felt the pressing need to go out and find everyone who had ever 
seen Ender in the past seven years and punch their teeth in.  But 
he looked into Ender's sad eyes, and let her continue.

"But mostly everyone just neglected me.  Which was, in truth, what 
I sort of condoned.  I didn't let anyone get close, and a damn lot 
of people did try, its natural to want warm up to a seven year old 
out on her own.  But after awhile people just accepted the fact 
that I didn't care about being cared for, or care about anyone else 
for that matter, and they returned the favor."

Ender paused, "When I was here with you guys at first I used to 
think about my father all the time.  I wanted to be with him again, 
even more so when I knew that they had gotten him.  The dream, the 
nightmare..."

Byers shock increased ten fold, he did not expect to hear this, any 
of this, he didn't know what he anticipated but he sure as hell 
didn't think she would tell him about the nightmare.  Every night 
for almost two years he had cradled her in his arms in the 
aftermath of that horrible dream and coaxed her back to sleep, and 
she had never spoke a word about what happened in the dream.

She looked up at him and laughed nervously, "It's, it's really not 
as terrible as you might think.  At first, it was just me, running 
around in this big empty field like a chicken with out a head 
trying to find my father." Ender tried to laugh again but instead 
just shook, it was beginning to take a lot of effort not to break 
out into hysterical tears.  

Byers took her hand in his and squeezed it tightly.  The friendly 
touch seemed to worsen the feeling Ender was trying to suppress, 
but she continued.
 
"After I left, in the dream I found him, dead in the field.  I 
couldn't scream anymore though, that annoyed people.  So I 
practiced" she thumbed her lower lip "biting down on my lip instead 
of screaming."  Her voice was beginning to tremble violently.

"Sixth months ago, there he was in the same spot, several months 
dead this time.  I turned around and..." she lifted her free hand and 
slapped her knee, "Langly, Frohike and then you each took a bullet 
to the brain."  She tried to word the last sentence graphically to 
take the edge off of it, for some reason she thought that would 
make it easier to accept and distance it from the image in her 
head, with which she connected much more tender, painful words.  
But it was useless, she caved and tears began to pour down her 
cheek.

Byers took his cue, and immediately wrapped his left arm around her 
shoulder.  He inhaled and started to respond.  Ender didn't let 
more than the first syllable get out.  This was all or nothing she 
thought to herself, if she didn't say this now, all of it, she knew 
she never would, only because no one would ever bother to ask.  It 
was a weight she bore that no one knew about.

"She begged him not... not to leave us alone" Ender pulled her knees 
up to her chest trying to make herself as small as possible, Byers 
furrowed his brow in utter confusion.

"But he said that it was safer if we stayed, he said he'd only be 
gone an hour."

To Byers' knowledge there was only one she that was important to 
Ender in her life.  Though this was an assumption based on the fact 
that everyone has a mother, Ender just never mentioned hers before.  
He stayed quiet, somehow he felt it would be easier for her to just 
tell it straight out, without any interruptions.

"I was sitting in the kitchen and she... she must have heard a car 
pull up, or something.  She took me out of that little booster seat 
thing..."

Byers couldn't believe Ender's vivid memory of an event that 
happened when she was so young.  

"And she, be damned if I know how she thought of this, must have 
had it planned months in advance, but she unscrewed the air 
conditioning vent, we had one of those big ones that circulated and 
filtered the air, god I had awful allergies back then, and she 
slipped me in and put the vent back on."

"She opened the door Byers!  She should have known, you never open 
the door!  A whole bunch of them came in, maybe three or four, but 
way more than you need to kill a three year old and her unarmed 
mother.  They all came into the kitchen and sat down.  They just 
kept asking her about what she knew and where my father was, and 
she didn't say anything.  Then they asked where I was, and she told 
them I was at school.  They knew she was lying and they kept 
asking."

Ender let out a sob, "And then they... they..." another sob, "I was 
right there and...

"Oh god," Byers murmured, pulling her close. "Oh, Ender. I had no..."

Ender dropped her knees and wrapped her arms around Byers' middle.  
He voice was borderline inaudible, muffled by Byers' suit jacket 
and her own sobs, "They didn't have to... it wouldn't have really 
mattered to them would it have?!  Just one loud bang, oh god it 
hurt my ears, I wanted to cry out, but... but... she fell... right, right 
in fron..."

"Ok Ennie, alright" He squeezed her tight and pat her back, "that's 
ok, that's enough" She didn't need to go any further, Byers 
understood full well, and was shaking a bit himself.

"No... I have to... I never told anyone..." Ender couldn't seem to 
find the words.

"Its ok Ender, I...I... you don't have to tell me anymore, I 
understand."

Enders form relaxed a bit and she fell silent save for her crying.  
She seemed relieved that she didn't need to go on.  Byers held 
Ender's shaking body, trying to deal with his own shock and find 
the words to comfort Ender.

Ender clung to him, showing more emotion in these past minutes than 
she had in all the time he'd known her.

He kissed the top of her head and lifted his hand to stroke her 
hair.  

"Its... it'll be..." Byers rested his cheek on top of her head for 
moment at a loss for words, "Oh geez Ennie," he felt like crying 
too, "That's it, don't worry, ok? It's over; it's all over now.  
You're safe and you can just stay here and we, we'll take care of 
everything for the next... ten to twenty years." He tried to let out 
a nervous laugh.  

"I'm sorry," she gasped between sobs. "I'm sorry."

"wha... why?  What on earth could you be sorry for?"

"I made you worry. I made you feel bad." she hiccupped.

"Ender..." he trailed off.

"You shouldn't hafta, you shouldn't have to hear all this... its 
not... I'm being selfish..."

"I don't want you to feel bad," she sounded like a little girl and 
he wanted to cry for her, he wanted to kill everyone who had ever 
hurt her. "I'm not worth that."

He pushed her away a bit and kissed her on the forhead and then 
pulled her in close again, "You're my little girl your worth a 
million times more than that."

Ender looked up at Byers. "You... you really mean that?" she 
stammered.

He smiled, weakly. "Why else would I put up with you?"

Ender coughed on a laugh and then buried her face in Byers' shirt 
again.  Ender didn't know how long they sat like that, all she knew 
was that this was the end, or at least the beginning of the end of 
all the crap she'd been through.  "No more" she thought to herself, 
and then cried into Byers' shirt until she was too weak to cry 
anymore.

End Part IV

***

Part V

Byers stroked Enders long black hair as her sobs died down into 
whimpers and troubled breaths.  He was at a loss for everything, 
words, actions, even rational thought eluded him.  He had not seen 
any of this coming and he had no idea what to do now.  He couldn't 
find the words to calm himself, let alone ones to ease the wrought 
nerves of the fourteen year old in his arms.  

He knew he should say something, anything to comfort her.  But what 
do you say to a little girl who has just told you that people have 
tried to kill her, that she's committed more computer fraud than 
most adults.  Worse yet, what do you say to a little girl who was 
there when the government brutally assassinated her mother? 

He wished he could lower her onto the pillow and sit with her until 
she fell asleep.  But she had just woken up, and there was no sleep 
in her right now.  

He was grateful for the few moments of silence to clear his head.  
Ender seemed content in sitting with her face buried in his suit 
jacket and arms clung around him as her strength to cry slowly 
faded.  When she finally fell completely silent Byers gently pushed 
her back and lifted her chin.

Her eyes were red and puffy as they met his.

"Thank you," she said softly. "I don't deserve this, any of this. 
Thank you."

"Your right Ender, you didn't deserve any of those things that have 
happened.  But," He lifted an eyebrow, "if you keep trying to 
convince us that we're too good to be hanging around with you I'm 
calling Mulder over to baby-sit and telling him to bring his 
'superstars of the super bowl' tape."

Ender's lips curled into a small smile.

"A little better I think, but lets just see here a minute, if I 
remember correctly, its not to difficult to adjust that" Byers 
smiled and then tickled Ender on her side.  Her smile grew and she 
finally let out a burst of laughter.  

"Ah, perfect." Byers stood up and messed Ender's hair, "What do you
say we have some lunch?"

Ender's weak nod cleared Byers to leave the room.  

He closed the door behind him and leaned on it, finally letting a 
tortured look crawl across his face.  He ripped his tie and jacket 
off and threw them into his room before going down the hall to the 
computer room where Langly and Frohike sat.

***

Frohike and Langly were completely shocked by Byers' entrance.  He 
was so very rarely disheveled that seeing him like this had taken 
them both aback.  His shirt was un-tucked and his tie and coat were 
absent.  His eyes were red.

"Byers, what happened, is everything ok?"

"You guys," he stumbled and slumped unto a computer chair, resting 
his face in his hands, "you guys have no idea what that little girl 
has been through."

"How much did she tell you?"

"Everything.  You were right Frohike; all I needed to do was ask.  
I don't know how I feel now that I know... there are so many things 
that I feel like doing."  He paused and looked up, "All of a sudden 
there are so many people I feel like hurting."

"What?" Frohike was a little shocked.

"None of the people she stayed with were kind at all."

"What people?" 

Byers thought for a moment, and then a light bulb turned on in his 
mind.  One of Ender's abilities, one facet of society seemed to 
unify this whole mess, seemed to be entirely responsible.  
Something he was against from day one.  He stood up and turned to 
Langly, "Hackers."  His voice was filled with a lot of hate; 
considering it was something others might even consider him.

"This is..." he stopped short of telling Langly that this was all his 
fault, "She would not have made connections with those... people if 
she didn't know them first," he took a step forward, "She never 
would have left if she didn't know how to get the information that 
drove her away."  Another step toward Langly, whose eyes were 
widening.

"Would you trade all your knowledge, all the truths you've learned 
over the past years, just so that you never would have been put 
into danger?" Ender stood in the doorway, eyes still a little puffy 
and red.

Byers turned his back on Langly to Ender, "Ender, its..."

"Its not any different Byers.  I know what you're going to say, 
that I'm still little.  Fine, I'll give you that, but little as I 
may be, I still have the ability to choose, for myself.  And 
everything I've done, every option I've taken was something I 
decided on.  Its not going to do anyone any good standing around 
talking about what could have been.  If Langly hadn't taught me to 
hack, I would have learned on my own."

Langly was a little amazed at Ender's words, especially because 
since this morning he had been on a major guilt trip.  Now that he 
thought of it, he had always blamed himself a little for Ender's 
leaving.  

Byers walked up to Ender and bent over a bit, "You grew up way too 
fast."

Ender shrugged and smiled as she watched Byers walk past her out of 
the room.  Frohike followed his companion in through to the 
kitchen.

"Don't take that personally Langly, Byers was looking for someone 
to deck."  Ender walked up to the computer Langly had just sat at.

"Yea, you definitely saved me a black eye.  Though I'm not so sure 
I don't deserve one."

Ender sighed disdainfully, "I think I may be rubbing off on you 
guys too much.  Enough martyrdom for one day, it's depressing.  
Seriously Langs, everything I did is exactly that... something 'I' 
did and chose to do.   That was the truth.  I wasn't just trying to 
save you from getting your ass kicked," she smiled, "even if 
hackers do look out for one another."

Langly sighed, "I don't know about that, especially not from what I 
gathered from what Byers just told us about your time... abroad."

"Life experiences," Ender spoke in a grand pompous voice, "nothing 
more than research.  After years of investigation, careful 
calculation and data gathering I've concluded wisely and 
knowledgably that there is no place I'd rather be than here."

Langly laughed and looked up at Ender.  He couldn't believe that 
someone who, from the looks of her, had been crying hysterically no 
less than ten minutes ago was comforting him.  He turned to the 
screen and set his fingers to the keyboard.

"Well, don't just stand there, get a chair, you're way too big to 
be sitting in my lap."

Ender punched him in the arm before rolling up a chair.

***

Frohike knocked the shot back and then offered Byers one.  Byers 
respectfully declined.

He had just told Frohike about Enders time hacker pad hoping and, 
more importantly, the death of her mother.  Frohike was taking it 
worse than Byers had.  

Frohike drank a second shot and then slammed the glass on the 
table.

"Bastards"

Byers stared blankly at the empty glass and nodded in agreement.

"I don't know who I want to kill first, the punk ass hippies she 
stayed with or the government goons who... who..."

He stood up and waved a finger at Byers, "One things for sure, that 
kid isn't leaving the house alone, ever."

Byers sighed and closed his eyes for a second, "Frohike, that's the 
first thing I thought.  But she's growing up; she's a teenager now.  
Who knows, if we're lucky she might even want to start socializing 
soon.  All we can do now is ride out the next few days, when things 
settle down again we'll worry about whether or not Ender should be 
under permanent house arrest to protect her from the dangers of the 
outside world."

The phone rang and Frohike left wordlessly to answer it.

"Hey Frohike, how are things at the casa de gunmen today?"

"Oh just peachy."  Frohike's response to Mulder was dripping with 
sarcasm.

"You boys catch the five o'clock news?"

"No" Frohike was beginning to get a little annoyed; "things have 
been kind of busy around here this afternoon."

"Why am I not surprised?  Well do yourselves a favor and flip it on 
now, trust me you'll be interested in this.  Scully and I are on 
our way over."

"Mulder what's..." Mulder hung up on him and Frohike groaned aloud as 
he flipped the news on.  

On screen was a professional looking man, concluding an argument, 
"...is a discovery that will have world wide medical, political and 
social ramifications."

Frohike dropped the remote onto the couch and took a seat as the 
token anchorwoman came on screen.  

"Thank you Doctor Poste.  Now what makes this recent discovery even 
more interesting is the nature by which it was announced to the 
world.  Here with us in the studio now is Laurie Garett and expert 
on the hacker subculture to discuss the author of the letter that 
came attached to these groundbreaking files."

"Jesus guys!! Get the hell in here!" 

Ender, Langly and Byers came tumbling into the room.

Ender stopped short and stared at her own image, age five, in the 
upper left hand corner of the screen, hovering above the "expert".

"The subculture of people who consider themselves hackers have 
quite a few representatives of their society.  Many of those 
idolized on the Internet and respected by hackers around the world 
are mere fairy tales, many of them have already been imprisoned.
One of the most popular is the story of a pre pubescent child
thrown into this community at the age of five.  The child's handle,
a name that other hackers refer to her by that is, is Ender, after
the widely popular character from Orson Scott Card's "Ender's
Game".  Ender according to the stories has done everything, from
exposing conspiracies to battling space aliens."  The expert
chuckled.

"But behind the myths that have been built up, there are many 
truths.  This Ender, is a real child, by the name of Annie Wilson.
She has been moving around amongst this community, which is
notorious for having a world-wide web of contacts, through which
one can move stealthily." 

"The files repeatedly make mention to a well known research 
scientist Dr. Jack Madsen, recently honored for his achievements in 
the biomedical technologies.  The article attached explains that 
this is in fact another well-known scientist long thought to be 
dead, Jack Wilson.  The article is signed Annie "Ender" Wilson."

"You mean to tell us that this woman exposed her own father?" the 
anchorwoman interrupted trying to sound knowledgeable.

"Ender is still very much a child, or was, she would be about 
fourteen right now.  However the article byline also specifies that 
it was published posthumously.  Annie Wilson is on record as being 
dead and buried for over six months now."  

The anchorwoman scoffed, "Well this family has a history of coming 
back from the dead, doesn't it?"

The expert was not amused and gloated, "No she is very much dead, I 
attended the child's funeral"

"Bullshit" Frohike laughed, "there was no funeral."

"What makes you so sure that this isn't just someone pretending to 
be this child if this is such a popular myth?"

"There are a number of clues.  The connection of the child's real 
name, Annie Wilson and the handle, Ender for one.  Plus this 
information, which I am convinced is legitimate, is very difficult 
to obtain.  It would take a very skilled programmer to access it, 
as I am sure Ender is.  More importantly is where the article first 
appeared."  The expert pulled this morning's lone gunmen out.

"Yahoo, free publicity" Langly sat down.

"Ender's first 'pad' was with a fringe group of men calling 
themselves the Lone Gunmen.  It is said she stayed with them for 
two years.  The article appeared in the Lone Gunmen's newsletter 
this morning.  It seems reasonable that they would be the ones she 
trusted to get this information out to the world in case of her 
death."

"Thank you Ms. Garrett" the anchorwoman moved on.

"Lets go to Sally Grise, outside of Biocorp's D.C. offices,"

Frohike muted the TV and turned to Ender.

"Wow, that was fast." Ender rubbed her neck, and almost jumped when 
the doorbell rang.

Frohike got up and walked to the camera, "It's the fibbies." He 
opened the door and Mulder and Scully came in.

"You boys care to explain what the hell is going on?" Mulder jumped 
right into it.

"Gee Mulder, are you ok?  You look like something's wrong." Frohike 
commented dryly as he locked the doors behind them.

"Oh, no its nothing, I was just wondering why our little angel's 
face was plastered across every news station on the remote!"

Ender crossed her arms over her chest. "OUR little angel? Since 
when am I YOUR angel?"

"Relax Mulder.  We found information about Ender's father..."

"Yea we got that off of channel 5 and channel 9 and 2 and 4" Mulder 
interrupted.

"Or rather, Ender found information about her father."  Byers 
continued, "She met with her little brother yesterday."

"She has a brother" Scully spoke for the first time, but went 
unnoticed because of Mulder's more demanding question.

"You let her leave to meet someone that close to her father?!"

Frohike pursed his lips, "We really didn't have much say in the 
matter."

Mulder turned to Ender who had now sat on the couch.  "She left 
again?!  Without asking?!"

He took a step toward Ender, who was completely disinterested.

"Relax g-man." Langly stepped in Mulder's path, "she came back, 
with information that needed to be exposed to the world in the 
worst way."

"So you let her send an article to all the news stations in the 
country.  I'm beginning to rethink about calling child services on 
you boys."

Ender shook her head. "He doesn't understand, guys."

"What don't I understand?!" Mulder exploded. "I understand that 
you're wanted by a lot of the wrong people and you practically 
turned yourself into one of them!"

"I'm already dead, it hardly matters.  This" Ender stood up and 
gestured to the television, "is more important." 

"Ender," Mulder clutched his head in his hands. "You could have
been killed. Don't you see the danger you put yourself in?"

"Can't kill a little girl that's already six months dead." Ender 
repeated "besides if this didn't go out the whole world would be 
fucked, what difference would it make if I was walking around to 
see it"

Mulder opened his mouth to unleash another tirade but Scully placed 
a calming hand on his arm and spoke softly. "Ender, we know you 
want to do the right thing, but..."

Ender finally lost it. "Who do you think you are? You're not my 
parents, you're not my guardians... you have no say in what I do!"

"Apparently no one around here does" Mulder muttered.

Byers walked over to Ender and into Scully's line of vision, "This 
had to be done.  We gave Ender the option; I told her that she 
didn't have to get involved in this.  But she wanted to."

"Yea," Langly stepped in, "you know, closure." 

"What happened to what we discussed" Scully turned to Byers.

"Eh, we don't settle back into anything slowly around here, it's 
all or nothing" Ender commented dryly.  She knew very 
well about all the planning and group meetings that went into her 
raising, but very rarely let on to it.

Scully raised an eyebrow at Ender, then Byers who just shrugged.

"Speaking of which.  I'm sure you all would like to start your 
meeting on how to deal with the recent news and the newly acquired 
information about my time away.  I'll leave you to that, I've work 
to do.  Give me a call when you've counted the ballots and decided 
my next life move."

She started out of the room but was stopped by Mulder's arm around
her middle.  He turned her around and returned her to the center of
the gathering.

She sighed, "wow, my attendance is actually required at this one?! 
Langly do me a favor, I'll give you my proxy, vote however you 
want." She tried to leave again but this time Frohike stopped her.

"Enough wise remarks midget.  You ought to watch that pie hole of 
yours, I caught that swear before and didn't like it."  He sat her 
on the couch and sat next to her.  Mulder flanked her on the left 
and everyone else took a seat nearby.

Byers, Langly and Frohike explained the situation to Mulder and 
Scully, while Ender sat quietly.

"That's it," Byers finished the explanation of the news Mulder and 
Scully had gotten about Ender off the television.

"Not really, is it Byers?  Might as well tell them everything while 
we've got everyone in one place" Byers recognized Ender's defensive 
sarcasm.  She always resorted to this when she was in a group.  She 
wanted him to tell them, but laced the request with sarcasm to 
protect herself.

Byers sighed, and told Mulder and Scully some tidbits about Ender' 
journeys.  It was a slightly more detailed account of Ender's 
original story this morning, with a few bits of information from 
their private conversation.

When he finished Ender sat there staring at him waiting for the 
rest.  But he could tell she didn't want him to tell that.  She was 
looking at him like this now because she thought sharing the story 
about Ender's mother would help to ease his pain.  He stood up and 
shook his head.

"That's it," he whispered, mainly for Ender's benefit.

Scully sat and observed the wordless exchange between Ender and 
Byers.  It was as if no one else was in the room.  There was 
definitely something being kept secret here, she concluded.  She 
pondered for a moment whether this was really her business though.

When she dropped Ender off at the Lone Gunmen's a few months ago 
she had anticipated having to take on a lot of the responsibilities 
that came with minding a fourteen year old herself.  However she 
had seen Ender no more and no less than she would have seen the 
Lone Gunmen during the course of six months.  And when she did see 
her, there was little more than business to discuss.  

She had, until this point; made the assumption that Ender was like 
everyone else in the part of her life she brazenly referred to as 
her "social" circle.  That this teenager had learned to keep her 
feelings to herself, depending on no one for support.  

She had definitely given them that impression when they first met 
but there was some small hint of dependence Scully picked up on 
when Ender regained consciousness after her spell.  And here it was 
again, except this time it almost screamed its existence to her.  
Ender relied on the Gunmen very much.  

She suddenly felt very awkward.  Mulder and she had barged in here 
and immediately assumed that they would be the voices of reason.  
They had entered with the attitude that they were the grown ups 
coming to straighten things out.  It had become very clear that 
things here were fine.  They may be going through something of a 
crisis, but it was a crisis that the Gunmen had recognized 
correctly as something that Ender needed to do to move on.  They 
were better parents than Scully had thought.

Mulder however wasn't attuned to the intricacies of what was going 
on, and made an almost ogre-like query.

"I don't think that's it yet either Byers.  What else is there?"

Byers stared at Mulder in disbelief.  Frohike lifted a hand and 
placed it gently on Ender's shoulder.

Ender immediately suspected the kind touch and concluded that he 
would not have bothered if he was thinking along the same lines as 
Mulder.  She knew he and Byers had had a conversation in the 
kitchen, and smelled the scotch on Frohike's breath.  Discussing 
what to make for dinner wouldn't drive Frohike to drink.  Byers had 
told him about her mother.  She was infinitely relieved.  She 
wanted to be able to tell Frohike and Langly herself, in fact she 
planned on doing so tonight.  She could have got up and hugged 
Byers right there for saving her the pain.  

However, she didn't want Mulder and Scully to know.  She couldn't 
quite explain why.  The aunt and uncle didn't need to be in on all 
the family secrets.

Byers opened his mouth, but was cut off by Scully.

"If there was any more Mulder, and if it was any of our business, 
Byers would have told us."

Mulder immediately sensed he had stepped into dangerous territory 
and backed out, Scully would have to explain this to him later.

"Ok." He nodded and rubbed his hands on his knees, "So now what do 
you boys plan to do?"

"Nothing," Langly replied, "all we have to do now is business as 
usual and ride out the next few days."

A tense moment and Scully took her cue to break up the gathering.

"Langly did you guys forward all of the information you found to 
the news?"

"Most of the key points, but there's plenty we didn't.  Here I'll 
show you."

Langly got up and everyone followed his example.  While they walked 
over to a workstation, Ender and Byers lagged behind.  Scully 
watched Ender give a quick tug on Byers sleeve, and then cup her 
hand over his ear when he bent over to whisper something.  Scully 
noticed for the first time in the past six months that a 
familiarity had developed between the inhabitants of this small 
dark cave of an apartment.  She felt even more awkward for her 
original attitude.

"You told Frohike?" Ender whispered in Byers' ear.

He straightened his back, "sorry".  If this upset Ender to the 
point where she would vocalize it then he would have to deal with 
Mulder's suspicions even more.  

"Don't be, I wanted him to know, but I never would have been able
to tell him myself."   

She slipped her hand into Byers' and the two walked over to the 
computer. 

***

Langly made a valiant attempt at explaining the biological data 
they had gathered to Scully.  After a few seconds he got up and let 
Scully sit at the keyboard.

To her surprise Ender was able to discuss the information with her 
rather impressively.  To her further surprise Ender confessed her 
ignorance on the matter and explained that she was only going on 
what she remembered from when she was younger.  

Langly stretched and yawned, "I guess we're all going to be here 
for awhile.  Who's up for burgers?"

Everyone supported Langly's idea.

"Cool, I'll come along for the ride."  Ender stood up.

"No!" Scully and Mulder jumped when all three gunmen shot Ender 
down in unison.

Ender stood in front of her seat, half standing up.

"Um... ok then.  I'll just uh... stay here then." She lowered
herself back into the seat. 

"Good" Frohike nodded.

Langly took orders and made his way to the door.  He stopped short 
with his hand on the third deadbolt, staring at the surveillance 
monitor.

"Um guys, I think there was one side effect of this whole thing 
that we didn't consider..."

"What?" Frohike swiveled in his chair to face Langly, catching a 
glimpse of the monitor en route.

"Oh shit..." Standing outside was a full news crew, one camera and 
anchor man from channel five, and the rest of the stations would be 
arriving as soon as they figured out where this camera guy was.

Langly flipped the locks shut again and put his back to the door 
cursing. 

"If they see a little girl here... they're going to know... "

"No kidding Sherlock!" Frohike pulled him away from the door just 
as the bell rang.

"So what do we do?"  Langly stumbled after Frohike over to everyone 
else.

Ender sat motionless moving her stare from Frohike to Langly and 
then to Byers.  The bell rang again

Byers inhaled, "Scully, I don't suppose you might..." he paused, 
"Will you look after Ender until this blows over?"

Ender's eyes widened, "No I want to stay here, I can't do anything 
useful from her place!"

"No complaints now midget," Frohike placed a hand on her shoulder 
and continued sternly, "Your safety is more important than our 
progress.  From this point on you're on a strictly 'do as your 
told' game plan"

Ender opened and closed her mouth slowly.

"Of course I'll look after her," Scully stood up, "but how are we 
going to get her out of here with the camera guy outside?"

"You guys can get to your garage without going outside right?" 
Mulder asked.

"Yea"

"Is there room in there next to the gunmen-mobile for my car?"

Langly nodded, "Sure"

"Ok here's the plan," He turned to Ender, "You pack up some stuff 
for a couple of days.  I'll run outside, through the news crew and 
get my car.  When I pull up in front of the garage I'll call you 
guys on my cell, open it up.  We'll work out the rest from there."

Mulder left and they watched him battle past the two men outside 
and jog down the alley.  They followed him half way and decided to 
stand their ground, returning to the door and ringing the bell again.

"But I..." Ender stood gaping.

"Go pack your things."  Byers turned to her.

"But..." She looked to Langly who stood uncompromising.

"Now."  Byers looked at her sharply and she hurried to her room.

A few seconds later the phone rang and Langly ran to open the 
garage for Mulder.

They returned in time to see Ender come out of her room, a stuffed 
satchel over her shoulder.  

"You have enough stuff in there to last you a few days?" Scully 
took the bag from Ender, who forfeited it reluctantly, then nodded. 
Ender's displeasure with the plan seemed to be announced by every 
movement she made.

Mulder took the bag from Scully, "Come on lets go."

The six of them went to the garage where they found Mulder's car 
parked next to the beat up old Volkswagen.

Mulder popped the trunk, and tossed Ender's bag in.

"Remember how we we're joking about you riding in the trunk a few 
months ago?" Mulder turned to Ender and smiled.

Her eyes widened.

"Well, some more news guys showed up and are probably right out 
side..."

"No... no way, I'll suffocate!"

"No you won't.  And it's only for a few seconds, five minutes 
tops." Mulder reached into the trunk and pushed on the wall facing 
the back seat.

"See the back seat opens up into the trunk, when it's safe, I'll 
reach back and pull it open, then you can crawl through."

Ender turned to the Gunmen behind her.

"Do what he says Ender" Langly responded in the harsh no nonsense 
tone that everyone had suddenly adopted and that Ender did not like 
at all.  

Ender swallowed and nodded as Frohike and Langly each took a step 
toward her.  They both hugged her for a moment, Frohike whispering, 
"behave" into her ear in the process.

Byers stepped up and hugged for a bit longer than Frohike and 
Langly had.  This couldn't have come at a worse time.  Ender had 
just shared some brutal information with Byers this afternoon and 
he knew that she would need him to be around.  Hell, who was he 
kidding, he needed her to be around after the news she had broken 
earlier.

He pushed her to arms length, "Its only for a few days Ennie, be 
good for Mulder and Scully, do EXACTLY what they tell you to, ok?"

Ender lowered her face to the floor.

He lifted her chin up, "Promise me you'll be good."

"I'll be good."

"Promise?"

Ender nodded, "I promise I'll be good."

Ender turned and climbed into the trunk, sighing disdainfully as 
Mulder closed it.

Mulder paused for a second, and then snatched up a stack of "The 
Lone Gunmen" throwing it into the backseat.

Scully and Mulder both got into the car, Mulder called out the 
window to the gunmen as Langly opened the garage, "I'll give you a 
call later."

The door opened and Mulder pulled out into a growing crowd of news 
people.  He slowed to courteous speed and inched past them, trying 
not to look suspicious, he wheeled down the window.

"What are all you guys doing here, something going on?" he smiled 
friendly.

An anchorwoman pushed up to the window, "What do you know about 
Jack Wilson?  Have you met this little girl, Ender?"  

Mulder scratched his head; "We're just here picking up some 
papers."  He nodded to the stack in the back seat, "Seriously guys 
what's up.  Someone get shot?"  He leaned out the car window a bit 
and looked around.

The reporters shuffled away from the car angrily and all returned 
to the door.

End Part V

***

Part VI

Frohike, Langly and Byers watched the garage door lower.

"So what now?" Langly head back inside.

"Someone has to go out there and deal with the mass." Byers sighed.

"I'll do it, I always wanted to have to fend off a crowd of 
reporters." Frohike smiled.

Frohike head toward the door leaving Langly and Byers behind.  
Byers turned into Ender's room instead of going down the hall.  
Langly stood outside for a moment, and then followed Byers into the 
room.

Byers stood in the middle of Ender's things rubbing his beard, 
"Should someone from the government come inquiring about Ender, I 
think it best for us to re-arrange things a bit."

"You mean pack up Ender's room?"

"No, but... let's just make it look like the last child who lived 
here was seven years old at the time."

Langly laughed and looked around the room, there was nothing but 
some piles of clothing too big for a seven year old, that would let 
on that this room's last inhabitant was really fourteen.

Byers began to compile Ender's clothing.  In a few minutes he had 
filled a laundry basket.  He turned back to survey the room.  The 
shelves were stacked with some advanced books, but they were books 
that belonged to Ender when she was five and next to them were the 
tell tale five year old storybooks.  

Langly looked over to Byers, "What was it that you didn't want 
Mulder to know... I mean, Byers was there any more to what you were 
telling Mulder and Scully before?"

Byers sighed, he could see no reason why Ender would want him to 
tell Frohike and not Langly, "Ender was there when her mother was 
shot."

"What?"

"Her mother hid her in a vent right before her murder.  She was... 
very close to her when it actually happened."

"Oh man..." Langly paused, "Oh geez, all this had to happen today.  
Crap.  She's really going to need to be around some familiar faces 
after opening a wound like that."

Byers sighed and paused in his work, "Yea I know." He whispered.

"But Mulder and Scully aren't exactly strangers.  She'll be ok, and 
this will all be over with before we know it."

Byers finished up and left the room.

Langly collected all the newspapers in the room and followed Byers 
out.  He slipped his hand along the wall in search of the light 
switch, but in his hand's blind wanderings he ran instead over a 
calendar which he quickly pulled off the wall.  

Outside Frohike had opened the door a crack and was dealing with 
the news crew.

"What do you guys want?!"

A mass of reporters shouted questions; the most audible asked one 
was whether or not he was a editor of the Lone Gunmen Newspaper.

"Yea, what's it to you?" he remained protected by the door.

Another period of shouting questions, Frohike latched onto one 
about where they received their information.

"Look buddy, we're all journalists here, right?"

A few people chuckled and muttered snide remarks about their 
newspaper, but in general everyone agreed.

"Then you should know as well as I do, you never reveal your 
sources."

There was an air of displeasure over that comment.  Finally everyone 
set on asking about Ender, it was the natural progression.

Amidst a few random questions about whether or not Frohike even 
knew the child and about when they had gotten the letter from her 
was a surprising number of questions about whether or not she was 
still alive.  Frohike became nervous; this was very bad.  If a 
bunch of two bit reporters were suspecting this, the feds would be 
sure to follow.  He paused, and thought to himself... what would you 
say to someone who asked you if your daughter, whom you knew was 
dead six months now, asked you if she was alive.

A look of disgust swept Frohike's face, "How dare you say that..."
he paused and the look slowly faded to a hurt one, "Ende... she...
that little girl died a long time ago... and I don't think its 
right for you people to be... to be running around telling people
she's still alive."   

Another look of disgust, "How do you sleep at night?"  

He pushed himself back through the door and locked it, turning 
around to face Langly and Byers and his own instantly delayed image 
on the television screen.

Langly and Byers broke into a reserved applause, "Very well done 
Frohike" Byers smiled.

Frohike took a small bow and joined his partners by the screen, 
muting the television as the news finally wrapped up.  

"Damn its quiet around here, huh?"

"Yea..."  Byers shut the TV off.

"Well I guess we're off for burgers then."  Frohike finally 
contributed some meaningful conversation.  He could already feel a 
repeat of what had happened three months after Ender had left the 
first time.  After they had gotten over the panic and done three 
months of intense searching, the three of them had sat around the 
apartment brooding and getting little work done.  This time there 
was no panic, because they knew where she was, so they would cut 
straight to the brooding if they didn't manage to keep themselves 
busy. 

"I'll see what we've got in the way of food in the kitchen." He 
turned and left to raid the fridge.  Langly quickly ran for the 
solace of his computer, while Byers resigned to packing Ender's 
clothing away safely.

***

Five minutes from the gunmen's home the flap inside the trunk 
pulled open and light flooded Ender's enclosure.

"Thank god, I was beginning to think you guys were finally getting 
payback."  She crawled out into the back seat satchel in tow.

"Now we wouldn't do a thing like that." Mulder smiled.

"Yea, you're not the sort to hold a grudge at all," Ender leaned up 
into the front seat, "Langly glued his hand to his forehead while 
he was crashing at the gunmen's.  Four years he waited before 
getting revenge."

Scully laughed.

"It looks like Langly's eyebrows have grown back completely, huh?" 
Mulder turned to look at Ender for a minute.  She laughed and 
nodded, 

"Pretty much."

The rest of the car ride to Scully's was filled with questions 
about the recent events.  Including a few about not so recent 
events.  Ender answered but remained general and vague for pretty 
much the whole ride.

She'd never been in an apartment like Scully's before.  Even her 
parents kept a much messier house, being workaholic scientists they 
had little time to decorate and dust.  Mulder swept the bag off of 
Ender's shoulder,

"Come on, I'll show you the guest room.  Many a gunshot wound have 
I recovered from in here." He exaggerated.

Ender followed him in, managing to conceal her general amazement at 
the fact that Scully had a room... for guests.  Up to this point the 
words guest room, if ever strung together in her mind, meant a 
clean corner on the floor, or if you were lucky a couch.

He tossed her bag on the bed.

"So, I think you'll be safe from news crews here."

Ender nodded, and walked mindlessly over to the window.  Windows 
were bad news in a pad, she looked out.  Thankfully this one 
happened to overlook the alley to the next apartment, not too bad.

"Ok then," Mulder head for the door past Scully, "I'll leave you 
two ladies to get settled in."  

"I'll call you when I get in Scully."

She nodded and walked Mulder to the door.

"Good luck" Mulder grinned in a bit too malicious a manner.

"I'll be fine, we'll be fine." Scully whispered.

Mulder raised his eyebrows and smiled, "Sure, sure you will.  Just, 
uh..." He pointed to her desk, "Watch your computer."

Scully sighed and closed the door behind him turning to the guest 
room.  Inside Ender was sitting cross-legged on the bed with her 
back facing the door.  The shades on the window had already been 
pulled closed and she was tinkering away with something.

"What do you have there?" Scully asked trying to sound friendly and 
just curious.

"Nothing" The object vanished back into the satchel and Ender stood 
up.

Scully nodded, "Hungry?"

After a meal, also like nothing Ender had ever encountered 
(Frohike, though he was an incredible cook, was only artful in the 
fried and greasy food groups, what Scully made was quite the 
opposite and Ender was pretty sure, that that wasn't a good thing) 
Scully gave Ender a quick tour of the apartment.  

The two sat down for the late news.  Again Ender's countenance 
graced the screen, but also, much to their surprise, Frohike made a 
short appearance.  The two had a good chuckle as Frohike 'acted' 
his way out of a tough spot quite adeptly.

At eleven thirty Scully swiveled to face the fourteen year old.  
She had spoken to Mulder earlier and convinced him that Ender would 
be fine alone in the apartment and that she could come to work in 
the morning.

"Well I don't know about you, but I've got to be at work tomorrow 
morning.  I think its time to head in, what do you say?"

Scully was doing her best to be friendly; instead of adopting the 
authoritative tone that she had used upon first meeting Ender and 
telling her flat out to go to bed, she made it seem like there was 
an option.

Ender smiled toothlessly, nodded and stood up.

Scully shut the lights and followed Ender down the hall, "If you 
need anything in the night," she paused and cocked her head toward 
her room and then smiled, "Call Mulder on his cell, I need to get 
some rest."

Ender laughed.

"You know, I finally read those "Ender's Game" books."

Ender looked up, "Really?"

"Yea, they're really good, have you gotten to the most recent ones 
yet?"

Ender nodded.

Scully smiled, "I think the misnamed you though."

"No kidding?" Ender smiled, no one ever discussed the works of 
Orson Scott Card with her before, "What should I have been called?"

Scully smiled wider this time, "Petra." 

Ender chuckled, "Yea, I guess that is more fitting attitude-wise.  
Well I am in the market for a new handle."

Scully rolled her eyes and closed the door.

Ender stood motionless, listening... Scully's door clicked shut and 
Ender pounced on the bed, ripping the old laptop out of her bag.  
She flipped it open and set it to the side, pulling several other 
bits of hardware out of the bag, each piece wrapped in an article 
of clothing until she had constructed a make shift work station 
capable of bouncing her signal around until is was nearly 
untraceable.  A cell phone capped the project.  

She dove into her computer.  She had heard enough of what the 
official news was saying, what Ender was curious about right now 
was what her community was saying.  She hit the Usenet groups, the 
message boards, and the chat rooms, eyes peeled for any mention of 
Ender.   When first prompted for a user name, she laughed to 
herself and typed in "Petra".  Everyone and their hacking Moms used 
names from Ender's game so there was no security risk involved.  
Besides why would the great Ender adopt the name Petra for herself?

The news from the hacker scene was basically what she expected.  A 
lot of people were whispering rumors about Ender being alive still.  
But the strong voices, those with real influence were shooting down 
the rumors.  Ender smiled to herself.  If anyone knew that she was 
still alive it would be these guys.  But the wizards knew that if 
Ender wanted to be thought of as dead, she should be.  

She was ready to head in at two thirty; she just wanted to drop 
Frohike an e-mail.

She smiled, hit send, and then waiting the obligatory five minutes 
before refreshing the anonymous mail account in search of an 
instant reply.

***
Frohike yawned and tapped keys listlessly.  Byers and Langly were 
still up shooting off ideas on how to keep Ender safe and kill the 
rumors that she wasn't dead.  He called up his e-mail account and 
found an unusual piece from an unknown address that didn't look 
like porn.  Hell if it was porn then he would have an excuse for 
looking.

Ender's message came up on his screen.  

"Don't worry; smuggled out some forwarding hardware, e-mail is 
secure.

I think I may dye my hair blonde, to throw of the reporters.  

The fibbies are weird.  I miss you guys.

Love
-E"

He smiled and then shook his head,

"I swear this child will be the death of me. She's smuggled 
hardware out, probably instead of clothes and is up at..." He checked 
his watch, "two thirty, sending us e-mail."

Byers and Langly walked over to the screen and both expressed the 
same humorous anger over Ender's actions.  It was good to see an e-
mail from her.  Their three hearts probably tore in unison upon 
reading that Ender missed them.  Frohike quickly typed out a 
response on behalf of all of them.

***

The e-mail appeared in her mailbox on the fourth five-minute 
refresh.  Ok, so it wasn't an instantaneous reply, but for some 
reason she would feel better after reading something, anything from 
the boys.

"Byers says if you dye your hair blonde you can stay with the 
fibbies.  I agree, all we need is two dumb blondes around this 
place.

Quit sending e-mails, I don't care if you're bouncing them off the 
space station.  

We miss you too.  Now go to bed.

Love,
Fro"

She traced the lines and smiled.  Yawning, she closed the laptop 
and slipped the entire unit underneath the bed before heeding 
Frohike's instructions.

End Part VI

***

Part VII

Scully woke at her usual time and peered into the guest room on her 
way to the kitchen.  The fourteen year old was sprawled out on top 
of the covers; sound asleep, in her clothes.  "God," Scully 
thought, "she even sleeps like a Gunmen."

She stared to write a note out to Ender, but before she could 
finish Ender walked down the hall in a clean t-shirt.

"Morning."  Ender yawned.

"Morning.  You hungry?"

"Nope, I'm ok.  You going to work?"

"Yea.  I'll be back at around 12:30, check up on you and bring some 
lunch.  You should be fine, just hang out, watch some TV or 
something.  Most of the tapes I have are kids movies for my nieces 
and nephews but if you're in the mood for Disney..."

Ender laughed, "I'll know where to look."

"My cell number and Mulder's are over by the phone.  But don't use 
it unless it's an emergency.  Don't answer it either, ok?"

Ender nodded.

"And uh..." Scully put her coat on and opened the door.

"I won't touch your computer Scully, don't worry." Ender smiled as 
Scully closed and locked the door.

After about five minutes of station flipping Ender was sitting at 
Scully's desktop.  She had Internet connection on her laptop, that 
wasn't what she was after.  She was bored, just wanted to rifle 
through some of Agent Scully's files, a victimless crime really.

Ender recovered from her hysterical laughter over Scully's window's 
password "protection" and she toyed with which way to break it.  
She opted for one of the more difficult ways, which involved 
changing the password from the setup.  This would be the best 
because she could restore things after she had finished.

She spent a few hours, looking through history files and even 
reading some of Mulder and Scully's cases.  Around 11:30 Ender 
pulled out of the computer and restored things. She sat on the 
couch, flipped to an all news station and was staring her father in 
the eye.

Shit.

She didn't want to have to watch this alone.  But if she didn't now 
while it was live, she'd only get some lame edited version of his 
press conference, or whatever the hell this was later in the 
evening.

He looked like crap and was shifting his weight from his right to 
his left foot.  He inched over a bit and Ender could see her little 
brother in the background, holding some tall brunette's hand.  

"Oh, now how could you hate this guy, he's a family man." Ender 
spat out sarcastically into the silence.  She'd packed some bug 
sweeping hardware and given the place a quick once over this 
morning and felt comfortable mouthing off without fearing that 
someone hear her.

Two MP's flanked the podium as Mr. Madsen claimed dutifully and 
robotically that he had no knowledge of any plans to use his 
research as a biological weapon, and openly scoffed at the 
suggestion.  He explained away the secrecy of his project by 
claiming that he didn't want to get anyone's hopes up.  

Question and answer time, Ender edged forward.

Four comments testing the validity of what he had just said handled 
very well and shot down by Mr. Madsen.  Then Ender heard her name.

"What do you know about the author of the note?  Is it true she is 
your daughter?"

"Is Ender alive Mr. Madsen?  Do you know where she is?"

***

Jack swallowed and flipped to his prepared answer.  His eyes traced 
the words, I've never had a daughter, and the whole thing is a 
preposterous lie to subvert my work and my company.  

"Sir, is Ender with these men, The Lone Gunmen?"

He inhaled, the MP's we're starting to get antsy.  This was the 
last time Jack would probably ever see the light of day.  If they 
didn't kill him, they'd render him useless for anything but 
mindless work.  Jack didn't feel like going through what he went 
through the first time, death would be a welcome release.  He 
looked back at his son, another Wilson who'll have to look after 
themself.  They brought him here so he wouldn't act up.  Jack 
shook his head, it didn't matter what he said or did, the plans for 
that kid were set out from day one.  He would be putting on his 
father's shoes a little earlier than they anticipated but they 
expected him to grow into them just fine.  Annie would be the 
exception in the family, only because of who raised her.  He 
silently hoped that she would do enough good to right the wrongs 
he'd done and the wrongs they'd force Michael to do.  He smiled 
wickedly; bastards never should have trusted me with this 
microphone.

"Sir where is Ender?"

"My daughter's name is Annie, she is Ender" he had one last chance 
to make it up to her, he would do what little he could to keep her 
safe, "And she's dead a long time now.  They killed her, they drove 
her to death."  The MP's went nuts; things were getting a little 
out of control.

He grabbed the mike as one of the MP's tried to pull him away, "And 
she has never lied about anything before in her life."

***

Ender sat in shock as the MP's pulled her father off stage.  What 
was worse was watching one snatch little Michael up and head off 
the other side of the stage.  They separated the family.  Ender 
could feel tears in her eyes as she thought about what would happen 
to her brother.

She really needed the boys to be around right now.  To stop her 
from running out the door to the press conference, or jumping on 
the computer and hacking until her fingers were bloody looking for 
the plans for her little brother, or just to be here, cause shit, 
she was starting to feel awful.

***

Byers, Langly and Frohike stared at the screen in awe.

"I have to see her." Byers turned to the door as Frohike placeg a 
hand on his shoulder.

"You have a death wish for the both of you?"

Byers looked him in the eye and raised his eyebrows appealing to 
him in his most logical voice; "She shouldn't be alone at a time 
like this."

Frohike sighed, "Byers buddy, there are a dozen or so news crews 
out there who are going to follow you wherever you go.  I'll call 
Scully and Mulder and tell them to go check in on her."

"Call them, fine, I'm still going over there."

"Listen to the man Byers," Langly appealed, "At least let him call 
Mulder and Scully, you don't know she might be ok.  When it comes 
down to it, this is good news."

They turned back to the screen to see a still shot of Ender's 
little brother being rushed off stage.  Langly swallowed the rest 
of his argument.

***

Ender curled up into a ball and laid on her side, staring at the 
image of her little brother.  She had managed to summon up enough 
self-restraint to stop her from doing anything rash, but she was 
sitting there now mulling over plans that she had every intention 
of carrying out. 

This time she was pretty sure her father was dead.  She was taking 
it infinitely better than she had the first time her father died.  
It still stung a little, partially because of his last actions.  He 
had tried to help her in the end.  She shook her head; it's easy to 
act noble and self-less when you're on death row anyway.

Her brother was her primary concern at the moment.  She didn't even 
know the kid, all she knew at the moment was whatever they had 
planed for her when she was his age, they would be doing to him.  
It wasn't fair that she duck out of that fate, whatever it may be, 
and have him step in for her.

She lay there in deep thought absorbing the images on the screen.  
She hardly noticed the door open and Mulder and Scully come in.

"Hey kiddo, what's up?" Mulder came in and adopted his buddy voice.  
She wasn't in the mood to be "kiddo-ed".  All things said, one plus 
to being out on your own, no matter what your age is no one calls 
you kiddo.  Every now and then she resented being babied, 
especially at times like these, when there was work to be done.

"Nothing" she sat up, trying not to look upset.

"You ok?"

"I'm fine"

"You see the uh... news?"

"Yes."

Scully came up to her and put a hand on her shoulder, receiving a 
hard look from Ender in return.

"I'm fine." Ender stood up and turned to the guest room.  By the 
time Mulder and Scully had come in she had her set up running.

"What the heck is that junk?" Mulder walked over to the mess.

"Its an easy bake oven," she commented dryly, "I'm making us all 
little cupcakes.  Now piss off."

"Ender don't do anything crazy now.  Just relax"

Ender looked up again, "If you've a problem with me doing this here 
agent Scully, I can go elsewhere." She closed the laptop and stood 
up only to be halted as usual by Mulder.

"There is important work to be done, if I don't do it now it will 
be pointless even trying later."

Scully sighed, "I'm calling Byers."  She made a point of saying
Byers and it had the desired effect on Ender.

"Don't call Byers, there's no reason to.  Everything is fine, I'm 
fine; now just leave me to my business.  No one will be able to 
trace me back to here I promise."

Mulder snatched the cell phone from the set up, depriving Ender of 
her phone line, "Call Byers, find out what they're doing and the 
situation over there.  And bring him up to date with things here.  
They're all eager to know how Ender is." Mulder turned to Scully 
who then stepped out of the room.

Ender stood waiting for Mulder to leave, silently laughing at his 
attempt to put an end to any hacking she might do.  She only used 
the cell phone to save Scully the phone bill charges.  A quick 
glance at the landline in the room, desperate times call for 
desperate measures.

"Give me the laptop Ender."  Ender sighed and raised an eyebrow.

"Agent Mulder, I really think that you are not capable of 
understanding the situation, if I don't..."

He interrupted her, "Don't Agent Mulder me, the laptop, now."

"If I don't do this now I will never be able to find him."

"If you do this now, you may find him but they'll find you.  The 
laptop Ender, now."

She stared him down, not moving.

He sighed disdainfully, bent over and pulled the laptop from the 
entanglement of wires.  

"You stay right in here."

Mulder left the room carrying the laptop and cell phone, stopping 
only to detach the phone from Scully's landline in the room.

He shut the door and Ender kicked the bedpost, "Bastards!"

***

Mulder walked into the room while Scully was on the line with one 
of the gunmen.

"Yea, she's not hysterical or anything"

Mulder waved the laptop and phone at her before placing them on the 
table, "Don't speak to soon.  She's hell bent on doing some serious 
poaching."

Frohike caught Mulder's words to Scully.

"Aww shit she's not doing anything is she?"

"She tried, but Mulder confiscated her equipment.  She's in the 
guestroom right now."

"Keep an eye on her, ok?  When she gets like this, she'll climb out 
the window just to get a hold of a computer."

"The window..." Scully looked to Mulder with an urgent look on her 
face, the guest room had a window and Scully's apartment was on the
first floor.  Mulder got 
the message and bolted down the hall.

The door to the guest room flew open and Mulder caught Ender 
halfway out the window.  He ran over and took her by the arm.

"Lets go Hilts."  He led her into the kitchen.

Scully waited for the two to come down the hall, "No Frohike, we 
got her, don't worry."

"Good.  Put her on."

Scully held the phone out to Ender who until that moment had been 
distracted struggling with Mulder and muttering curses.

"Frohike wants to talk to you."

"Is that line secured?" She grasped for an excuse not to have to 
hear a lecture.

"Tell the midget the lines fine, and that she damn well better be 
on it in the next ten seconds."

Everyone in the room could hear Frohike's response.  Scully raised 
her eyebrows and leaned in toward Ender with the phone.  She took 
it and reluctantly put it up to her ear as Mulder let go of her 
arm.

"Yea?"

"What happened to behaving?" 

"Things came up."

"Yea," Frohike gave his characteristic sarcastic laugh into the 
receiver, "no kidding.  You still feel like climbing out of 
windows?"

"Probably."

"Then save me the trouble, pick one on a higher floor next 
time."

Ender sighed, "Thanks for the well wishes Frohike."

"Don't give me that.  I have Byers here kicking and clawing to get 
over there and I'm trying to prevent him from getting all of us 
killed.  Now I have to deal with you trying to get us off-ed too?!"

"What are you guys doing?" Ender ignored Frohike's scolding.

"Langly's at the computer right now doing everything you would be 
doing.  Plus for the time being I sat Byers in front of the VCR, 
he's analyzing the tape of the press conference."

"Good, that's a good start.  Tell the fibbies to give me my 
hardware back so I can help Langly."

"Listen Missy, you're only concern right now is to sit tight with 
Mulder and Scully and try to avoid the ass kicking you seem to be 
trying so hard to get."

"Frohike..."

"That's it, end of conversation.  Put the Mulder on."

Ender sighed and turned the phone over to Mulder angrily.

"Mulder?  Can you and Scully sit on her for a little while?"

"Yea, no problem Frohike.  How's the press looking over at your 
place?"

"Things seem to be thinning out a little but we've still got plenty 
of coverage out there."

"Ok then, Ender will be fine here.  You guys keep us up to date on 
what's going on over there."

"Sure thing Mulder."

***

Frohike hung up the phone and turned to Langly clenching his teeth.

"Small fry acting up again Frohike?"

"Yea, to say the least.  Mulder just pulled her off a window 
ledge."
 
"What?!"

"Don't worry it was on the first floor`, she was trying to get a 
computer."

"Is Ender ok?" Byers called from inside.

"Yea buddy, she's fine!" Frohike responded then looked at Langly 
again.

"Hey there's no need to get Byers all worked up, Mulder and Scully 
have things under control."

"Lets hope so" Langly set to his task again.

***

Ender sat next to Mulder on the couch.  Scully had run out to grab 
some case-files and lunch.

"Hey, college ball.  How about that Ender?" Mulder nudged her with 
his the arm that held the remote.

Ender groaned and glared at him.

"Or not." He moved on to the next set of channels.

Ender eyed the keyboard on Scully's computer.

"What do you think you're going to do Ender, sneak over there while 
I'm not looking and hack into the CIA database?"

"That's more or less my plan, except mine involved more firearms."

"Oh, a threat to a federal agent.  I could arrest you for a thing 
like that."

"You mean I'm not under arrest right now?"

"Damn you grew up into a wise ass."  Mulder laughed.

"You did have a hand in my up bringing, its one of those 
characteristics I inherited from you." Ender smiled at Mulder.

"Nah, come to think of it you were always a wise ass.  I've never 
heard sarcasm from a five year old until I met you."

Ender nodded to the TV screen as though it still had the image of 
her brother on it, "He's a wise ass too." She smiled.

"The Gunmen are doing everything they can to find him Ender, 
there's nothing more you could do."

End Part VII

***

Part VIII

Langly's head slammed on the keyboard, "There's nothing more I can 
do.  This kid is a ghost."

Frohike walked over to Langly, "You tried everywhere? You're sure 
there's no sign of him?"

"Nothing," Langly looked up, "they're obviously not taking any 
chances and putting information about him onto any computer in the 
known world."

"They won't make the same mistakes they have in the past" Byers 
walked in with the videotapes.

"Its all there.  The MP's carried him away from his family and 
placed him into a black sedan." 

"What can we do with this?" Frohike turned to Langly for 
suggestions.  He shrugged as Byers answered.

"At most, publish an article raising the issue of where this boy 
has gotten to.  But that probably won't make any difference.  The 
government is damn good at this sort of thing.  Making a parent-
less child disappear is very easy."

"Easy enough that we could do it." Langly added.

"All they have to do is say that he's with relatives, and the 
public swallows it." 

Frohike shook his head, "This is going to destroy Ender."

Byers closed and opened his eyes slowly, "No it won't.  There is 
always hope."

Frohike nodded though he didn't agree with his companion.  This kid 
was a ghost, like Langly said.  Maybe they should just tell Ender 
he's dead so she doesn't waste her time harping on this.

***

The next three days brought a series of disappointments that Mulder 
and Scully, as per the lone gunmen's instructions, tried to keep 
Ender unaware of.

They had all but given up hope of finding Michael Madsen.  He had 
been eaten up by the government system and nothing, short of a life 
in front of a computer, flipping through pictures would ever 
succeed in finding him.

The six o'clock news the day of the press conference had an edited 
version unsurprisingly.  What was surprising was the absence of 
Jack Madsen's final sentences and the uproar afterward.  

There were people who remembered what had happened, who had seen 
the conference, but how many people are home watching the news on 
an all news station at eleven am on a weekday?  The Internet was a 
war ground for a day, with accusations and sweeping conspiracy 
theories.  It died down quickly.

On the second day Dan Rather sat in front of a camera and told 
everyone that it had all been a giant hoax.  

"Gee" Frohike spat out at the television screen, "you know what 
would really help this news report, some images from when we bombed 
the Balkans a couple of years ago.  Oh wait we never did that... 
Rather just showed us the pictures!"

"The man is the CIA's bitch.  He's going down... next issue, I don't 
care if I can't find anything, I will make stuff up."

"Langly" Byers voice had the familiar cautionary tone, but he keep 
his eyes trained on Rather's face.  Frohike was convinced that if 
that really were Dan Rather and not a TV screen, Byers would have 
stared him dead.

The news crews left, after waiting a few hours for a response to 
Rather's report.  The gunmen didn't give them the pleasure.  On the 
third day they called for Ender.  Not sure what she had seen, or 
what they would tell her.  

She was noticeably glad to be home.  Frohike opened the door for 
her Mulder and Scully.

"Hey," he smiled and laughed, "good to see you shorty!"  He wrapped 
his arms around Ender, who accepted the hug.  

"Good to see you too Frohike."

"Ender, welcome back.  How are you?"
 
"Fine Byers." She smiled and gave Byers a hug.

Langly walked in, "Ahh it sounded like the midget was home."

He walked over and took her in his arms, but instead of hugging 
her, poked her in both sides.  Ender giggled and pulled away 
quickly.

Mulder chuckled for a second, but on the whole looked surprised.

"Aw, no way, Mulder man, I can't believe we put her in your charge 
and didn't clue you in on her biggest weakness!"  Langly grabbed 
her and managed to tickle her for a few more seconds before she 
escaped and ran over to the other side of Byers.

"Eh that's right, run to your mommy midget." Langly smiled.

Ender stuck her tongue out, "I still owe you one Langly, you're not 
making it any easier on yourself"

"Eh, I'm shaking."

"Should be, Mulder just shaved your eyebrows, I might just shave 
the whole thing next time you fall asleep."

Frohike perked up and swatted Langly's shoulder, "I dare you to do 
that again."

Langly looked as though he might accept the dare for a moment, then 
realized Frohike was hoping Ender hadn't been lying about shaving 
his head and stopped short.

Ender glared at Frohike, "I'll shave his head, and glue his hair 
onto yours if you keep encouraging him."

Byers chuckled and led Ender over to the couch where the three 
Gunmen took seats.  Mulder made to go over and sit down but Scully 
discretely stopped him.

"Mulder, we better go, we've got a lot of work to do."

Mulder looked confused and almost protested, but Scully had already 
turned to leave.

***

They explained the events of the last few days to Ender.  Mulder 
and Scully hadn't done as good a job of keeping her disconnected as 
they had thought and a lot of the information wasn't news to her.  
Her reaction to the news report was the same as Langly's but she 
stopped just short of calling Rather the CIA's bitch when Frohike 
glared at her menacingly.  

She took it well, some how in the past three days she had managed 
to convince herself that this was just another story.  They really 
couldn't have expected that much to come of it.  It helped her 
enormously if she didn't think of it personally.  Byers knew 
exactly what it felt like those first few weeks knowing that you 
had escaped but someone you loved was in their grasp.  Ender was 
hiding the pain very well.

Ender and Frohike stayed in front of the television and watched the 
news for a few hours.  She slowly faded out and wound up leaning on 
Frohike sound asleep at around eleven thirty.

"Hey Frohike," Langly came in and found him sitting on the couch 
with an arm wrapped around Ender's sleeping form and recalled the 
phone conversation with Scully a few days earlier, "what happened 
to kicking her ass?"

"Shut up Langly."  Frohike smiled and keep his eyes forward on the 
television screen.

***

For the next few weeks Ender seemed almost emotionless in her work 
during the day.  At night however, when she managed to sleep, she 
was haunted by a new nightmare.  She told Byers about this one on 
the first night, even though, because she had aged significantly 
since the creation of the first nightmare and had seen enough 
terrors to riddle her subconscious with plenty of graphic images, 
this one was far more gruesome.

More often though they would find her passed out on a couch or in 
her bed, not having gone to sleep until a few hours, or sometimes 
minutes before they woke up.

Frohike found her on one such morning, asleep in her clothes with 
her shoes on, on top of the bed sheets in her room.

He walked over and pulled her shoes off, Ender didn't stir.

"That's it" he argued with the incapacitated child, "this is the 
last all-nighter.  If you're not in bed by nine tonight, I'll drag 
you here by your earlobes."

Ender was out cold, and Frohike was talking for his own benefit.

"Well buddy, at least now you really fit in, huh."  He sat down at 
the edge of the bed and turned in toward her.

"Yep," he sighed, "another one with a mission."  He reached up and 
pushed a wisp of hair out of Ender's face before standing up.  He 
kissed her on the cheek and turned to find Byers in the doorway.

"Two is the maximum capacity for one household" he waved a finger 
in Byers' face, "No more missions, I can't handle another mission."

Byers smiled at Frohike as he passed and went into the room only to 
pull the covers up to Enders neck.

***

Part IX 
Epilogue 

Five months later
4.2.00 Ender's 15th Birthday

I ran my hand over my baldhead.  They shaved it every two weeks; it 
was how I had kept time during that first month, before they let me 
see windows.  I had tried relying on my internal clock to gauge the 
passage of days but that hadn't worked because I had grown used to 
keeping bizarre hours.  There was no guarantee that I would become 
tired at the same time every night.

By my count five months had passed.  In the second month I was 
released from my quarters and I realized that I had been taken to a 
military academy.  They kept a heavy watch on me at all times, 
ensuring that my freedom was less than equal to that of my much 
older other classmates.  

At first I was sure that they could keep me confined for my whole 
childhood, then I drew the conclusion that the initial imprisonment 
was meant to break me so that I would soften up to whomever they 
put in my contact.  Another assumption I made that this person 
would be an instructor or a doctor.  I now know that I am supposed 
to develop a trust in my fellow students first.  It is a brilliant 
plan, after I trusted them, "They" would earn my trust through the 
children.

But I was on to them from the first moment.  I dedicated my life to 
keeping one step ahead of them in their mind games.  At the moment 
they were trying to make me feel as though I am being paranoid.  

And that, I concluded, is why I am sitting here unsupervised at the 
console of a computer that is networked like all the others, and 
has Internet access.  They had let me get in here way too easily. I 
know they are watching.

They figured they could kill two birds with one stone.  Earn my 
trust, make me lower my defenses, and find out for sure that Ender 
was still alive.  Of course the first thing a little eight year old 
would do when given the means to would be to run to his big sister 
for help.  

That was why I had broken into the room, wasn't it?  But I sit here 
with my hands on the keyboard, reluctant.  I know they are 
watching.

I could find out for sure, hack into the system and find out how 
they were monitoring me.  But then I would be showing the some of 
my cards.  I didn't know whether or not they know what my abilities 
with computers were, hell I wasn't even sure myself what I was 
capable of.  If I unleashed my kung foo right now, I may not be 
able to use it later, when I really needed it.

But then again, they may know that I could hack.  They would have 
definitely gone through my belongings and found something that 
tipped them off.  I was thankful that I had annihilated everything 
on my hard drive before the morning of the news conference.  

But then again, maybe they saw my files before that.  Maybe they 
were always watching my computer; maybe they saw my e-mail to 
Ender.  Maybe they've caught her already.  Otherwise she would have 
come to save me.  I can't think of any other reason why she hasn't 
come yet.

Instead of a accessing the Internet, I hack into the intranet.  
Access, format, repeat.  I wonder how many computers I can erase 
before they find me.

I think I may be talking in my sleep.  I should stop that, I may be 
telling them things.

Access, format, repeat.

They took my rat.  I used it to check my food before I ate it, for 
mind-altering substances.  I would feed it and then check my person 
for puncture wounds, you know, where they may have injected me 
while I was sleeping. After I'd finished that I'd see if the rat 
was behaving normally before eating.  If they wanted to earn my 
trust so bad they shouldn't have taken my fucking rat.

Access, format, repeat.

I wonder if they can read my thoughts.

***

Under direction of Frohike, Langly and Byers had removed Ender from 
headquarters for the afternoon.  He had the impression that they 
would be surprising Ender with any celebration they planned.  As 
Langly, Byers and Ender left for lunch that afternoon though, Ender 
was laughing and muttering that they were "Awful at being covert."

It was most likely Langly's ten birthday punches that had given 
things away; Byers stopped him short of his goal.  Ender expected 
she had another five coming at any moment, six if Langly was the 
"one for good luck" sort.

Byers excused himself after they had paid for lunch and told Ender 
and Langly that he'd meet them outside.  He walked out in time to 
hear Langly shout "five!"

"Langly!"

He lifted his head but kept Ender in a headlock, "Come on Byers, 
what kind of birthday would it be without birthday punches?"

"A pleasant one?" Ender struggled.

"Let her go." Byers sighed.

Langly paused in thought for a second, sighed and released Ender.  
He smiled wickedly while she brushed herself off, and gave her a 
final jab in the arm, adding quickly, "and one for good luck."

Ender sneered, "Just wait for your birthday Langs."

"Your little arm would get tired before you hit ten birthday 
punches."

"Who says I'm giving you birthday punches, you'll wish for birthday 
punches.  More like birthday exlax in your coffee, or birthday 'why 
that's Nair, not shampoo!'"

Another wicked smile on Langly's face, "that's it, midget 
wrestling!" He ran toward Ender.

She bolted behind Byers, laughing hysterically, "You stay away from 
me Langly, or I won't wait until your birthday to shave you bald!"

"You can't hide behind your mommy's skirt forever," Langly laughed 
and ran Ender around Byers.  He faked left, and Ender ran right 
into him.  He hoisted her off the ground and began to walk down the 
block.

"Fifteen and still a midget."  He laughed as Ender giggled and 
fought to get free.

"Langly, put her down, you're going to hurt her," Byers warned as 
he walked along with them, "you're going to hurt yourself." He 
chuckled.

"No way, she can't be more than ninety pounds, besides," his smile 
got wickeder, "this child has to be treated for her illness. It 
seems to come out of recession."

Ender looked confused for a moment, and then her eyes got wide, 
"No, Langly don't!"

He flipped her upside down and they continued down the block, all 
three of them in a good deal of laughter.  Langly and Byers were 
looking down at Ender, but Ender's eyes were straightforward when 
the heard the 'click'.

A man of about twenty-five years lowered a professional camera from 
his face and met Ender's stare.  Byers and Langly immediately 
looked up in the reporter's direction.  Langly stood Ender up 
slowly.

"Sir I don't think that you've the right to be taking out 
photograph." Byers' voice was shaky.

The man's face was cold, Ender saw something there though that 
Langly and Byers, who had already given up hope and were 
formulating plans to deal with the news report that Annie "Ender" 
Wilson was still living, didn't.  He's face was cold, but if his 
feelings matched his look, then he would have ran off by now.  Hell 
his eyes gave him away; she took a few steps forward.

"En... Ann..." Byers stuttered and winced as he pretty much sealed
the deal for the reporter.

Ender looked up into the man's eyes and furrowed her brow, "You 
should have used a gun instead it would have worked faster." She 
motioned toward the camera.

"Please," the reporter scoffed, "No one is trying to kill you 
little girl.  These guys have made you way to paranoid. You belong 
in an institution, and they belong in prison."

"How come you guys never ask what happened to that little boy that 
morning, or what happened to the man in front of the podium.  They 
were killed for this.  If you print that photograph, then you will 
never be able to lie down into your bed again without knowing that 
you killed me."

Byers ran up to Ender and pulled her away by the arm, dragging her 
in the opposite direction.  

"I'm going to kick this guys ass."  Langly turned around sure of 
his game plan now.

"Langly, don't, even if you get the film he still knows what he saw 
and they're will be more like him soon.  If you hurt him that just 
confirms his suspicions."

That walked on Ender struggling to turn back around, she managed to 
turn her head in his direction and met his stare again.  He hadn't 
moved.

"Ender, what are you trying to do, give him another shot?" Langly 
snapped.

"Wait!" The man's call caused Byers and Langly's heads to turn in 
the direction of Ender's.  The photographer slowly opened the 
camera back and exposed the film.  Ender smiled and turned around 
free of Byers' guiding hand on her arm.  Langly and Byers recovered 
from their shock and caught up with Ender.

"You're creepy you know that," Langly shoved Ender lightly, "you 
ever try any of the crazy mind control you do on me and I'll kick 
your ass" he smiled.

Ender grinned, "What makes you think I haven't already?" She capped 
the wicked question with a wave of her hand in a motion suggesting 
some sort of Jedi mind trick.

They reached the door, inside Frohike and Scully were waiting to 
wish Ender a Happy Birthday, and Mulder was pondering whether or 
not he was the "one for good luck" sort.

END