From bobdobbs@flash.net Mon May 12 07:03:07 1997 Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: Eugene (1/3) From: Zachary Carleton -------- REVISION UPDATE - MAY 1997 XFILES FANFIC ARCHIVISTS: Please remove any other versions of this story from your archives. PLEASE ARCHIVE!! Title: Eugene (1/3) Author: Robin Starveling Rating: PG-13 (Language, Violence, Description of Adult Scenes) Categorization: X -X-File - Plot driven centered around an investigation. Point Of View: 3rd Person Omniscient Timeline: This tale on June of 1997. It is assumed to be at the end of the fourth season. Spoilers: Focuses much on the episodes "Squeeze" and "Tooms" with occasional references to "E.B.E.", "Erlenmeyer Flask," and others. Keywords/Misc Descriptions: This is a "plotter" story, not a "relationshipper." Summary: Eugene Victor Tooms is back with a vengeance, and not even Scully and Mulder can stop him this time. DISCLAIMER TO END ALL DISCLAIMERS: The following contains characters owned by Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions. The intent is fan fiction. It is my understanding that Carter and 1013 are under legal restraints NOT to accept unsolicited ideas or manuscripts and this is not written to be considered for the series. If ideas or concepts contained herein are found in similar X-Files episodes in the future, I publically relinquish any rights to seek legal action against Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen or related organizations and corporate entities regarding my publically expressed USENET Newsgroup post. This is for entertainment purposes only. I give my permission for this to be sent to newsgroups & archives as long as my name, title, this disclaimer and other stuff stay with the work. That last sentence was stolen and altered from a very similar sentence by but s/he probably got it from someone else. Events and characters below are fictitious. Any similarity to persons or events living, dead or undead are purely coincidental. The Earth Is Flat. Feedback is appreciated. Please write to bobdobbs@flash.net if you have the inclination. ________________________________________________________________________ "We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence." - Charles Darwin 1809-1882 ________________________________________________________________________ S. 66 Exeter Street, Baltimore Maryland June 1st, 1997 11:21am My son-in-law _would_ choose this place for lunch, thought Detective Frank Briggs to himself in a huff. Not that his son-in-law could possibly know the horrors of 66 Exeter Street. If he tried to explain it to the lad no doubt they'd send him back to the rest home. Briggs didn't want to make waves. His last few years of his life he was going to spend with his family. His daughter's family. One afternoon at the Towne Square Shopping Mall on 66 Exeter Street wasn't going to kill him. Tooms is dead, he kept telling himself. It's been three years. The horror of the Pao Alto Mills murders was over sixty years ago. Briggs had done his tour of duty, and now he could relax. "C'mon grampa!" "I'm comin', Charlie. Keep yer pants on kid!" Briggs laughed as his battery-operated wheelchair moved away from the mini-van, his daughter faithfully behind him. She closed the door and walked in step along with his chair. They moved together towards the front doors of the shopping mall, leaving the parking lot behind them. "You sure this is okay Daddy? I didn't realize this was-" "It's alright Cheryl. I'm sorry I blew up in the car. It just surprised me is all." "Well the doctor said I should keep you away from surprises." "Bah! Nonsense! I've never felt more alive!" They entered the shopping mall. This was supposed to be a celebratory afternoon. Briggs' stuff was already moved into his daughter's new home in Baltimore. This was a chance for the family to get aquainted. The grandchildren were obviously happy to have their grandfather living with them. His daughter had said countless times that she should have done this years ago. Briggs knew why she never did, though he never asked her. Her first husband beat her. He could tell when she visited. Then she visited less and less. Finally she got rid of him, and though this new son-in-law had his head up in the clouds most of the time, he'd never seen her happier. He'd never seen her more alive, and he was good for the kids. "I thought we'd start at the food court," his son-in-law said to him. "Would that be alright, sir?" "Please Stan! Call me Frank. We're family." "You're a retired detective, sir." said Stan. He had a smile on his face, but a tone of seriousness in his voice, "I know you don't think much about my work as a meteorologist, but my father was a fireman. I've been taught to respect law enforcement so if you don't mind, I'd like to offer you the same respect I gave my father, if that's alright with you?" This took Briggs a bit by surprise. He looked over at his daughter Cheryl who was absolutely beaming. "Well, Stan- Is it okay if I call you Stan?" "Oh please do." "Anythin' that floats yer bubble, Stan." Briggs offered the toothiest smile he could. It seemed to be enough. Maybe this latest husband of hers wasn't gonna be so bad after all. "I heard about this great Deli at the Food Court. The doctor said you couldn't have any of the Ruebens that Cheryl says you use to love, but I'm sure we can come up with something palatable that is in your diet restraints." Briggs grumbled, "sounds irresistable." "C'mon Dad." "A Rueben wouldn't kill me. I haven't had one in over fifteen years!" "Well maybe we can start your diet officially tomorrow," Stan said with a smile. "Stanley!" "Oh, come on Cheryl! Live a little! We can put your father on beans and rice tomorrow. This is a happy occasion!" They made their way into the lavish food court of the shopping mall. The kids were running around looking at all the shops. Briggs felt warm inside and happy. Yeah this Stanley kid's alright. "I'll go get the sandwiches. You guys grab a table." "Alright, Stanley," Cheryl said reluctantly, "maybe this wasn't a good idea. Stanley might kill you with kindness." "There's worse ways to go, Cheryl," Briggs laughed. The horrors of his life on the force seemed so distant now. "I don't think I told you. Stanley lost his father in a fire when he was a teenager. When I told him I'd like you to move in with us he almost exploded with joy." "Hmm... A fireman, huh? Big shoes to fill. I wondered if I ever worked with his father?" "I don't think so Daddy. Stanley was born in Missouri." "I don't mind being a surrogate pop. Sounds like fun." Briggs looked over at Stanley. Tall man in a suit and tie. He'd make a good father for the kids. His daughter finally chose well. About time. "They're talking about giving Stanley a shot on the air nights and weekends. His new boss just wants him making out the overlays for the ten o'clock news right now, but he thinks this new television station will give him more opportunities... Dad? You okay?" Briggs was still looking in Stanley's direction but he was no longer looking at Stanley. He didn't realize it consciously, but he had moved his wheelchair away from the table, about five feet closer to the deli counter, which was at least twenty feet away from his daughter at the table. "I'm fine," Briggs said, but the words didn't sound convincing to him. He was a thousand miles away, or rather thirty years away. Briggs stared at the man behind the counter. He couldn't believe his eyes. The man taking the order from Stanley, with a slight grin, looked like Eugene Victor Tooms. He was sure of it. He just had to get a little closer. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him. He was a little nearsighted even with his spectacles. "Daddy? Where you going?" He wanted to get a look at the eyes. "Just a minute... Cheryl. I wanna get some uh, mustard packets for the Rueben." Then it hit him. He could feel it. All over in this place. That same feeling he felt over sixty years ago, the first time he stepped foot in that room in the building that was torn down here over three years ago to make way for this very shopping mall. That room which was the resting place for a man named Eugene Victor Tooms. Man? You could barely call him that. Tooms lived inside a nest in the walls, made out of newspapers and rags, covered with Toom's own bile. Briggs knew of about a dozen murders Tooms had committed. Tooms would enter into a victim's location in an unorthodox way. Through an airvent or laundry chute or chimney. He'd violently attack the victim like a predator, and all he would take was their liver. Cheryl knew her father never ate mustard with his Reuben, not even when she was a little girl, "Daddy? Come back here please!" Those eyes! He looked at least twenty years older but it was the same man! Impossible! Briggs' blood began to boil. How dare this freak of nature still exist after all Briggs had done in his life to destroy him? "TOOMS!" Detective Frank Briggs stood up from his chair for the first time in over a decade, and tried to take a step towards the man behind the counter, but his legs wouldn't respond. Detective Frank Briggs' mind was over thirty years back in time, but his body was in the present. Then the coronary hit and he was on the ground. His family gathered around him. The grandkids were crying. Stanley was speechless, holding a tray of Reubens for his newfound family. Cheryl had run to her father's side and caught him as he fell, tears in her eyes. Briggs looked up at his lovely daughter, "Cheryl... get me Agent Scully. Agent... Scully." ______________ Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center Cardiac Ward Baltimore, Maryland June 2nd, 1997 9:02am "And our excercise sessions start this time of the day every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Mister Briggs. We'll get you started on that as soon as you are able. In a few weeks you'll be right back in that wheelchair and playing with your grandchildren," the nurse was pleasant and sweet but Brigg's mind was on other things. Where are they? "That's good to hear nurse. Thank you. When do visiting hours start?" "Well they start in an hour, sir. But your daughter's been in the waiting room all night. The doctor doesn't want you to be emotionally affected for awhile. You're still not in stable condition." "I'm fit as a horse! Send her in." "Mulder, FBI," he flashed his badge like a veteran, thought Briggs. About time these kids got on the case. Again. God! Again! What will it take to get rid of this animal? "This is Special Agent Doctor Scully. Detective Briggs sent for us." "Visiting hours are-" "It's alright Nurse Townsend," the doctor said at the door. "I've already spoken with them." "Is that them?" Briggs could hear his son-in-law's voice out in the hall, "I need to speak with them." "Just Agents Mulder and Scully right now, Mister Warefield." said the doctor. "I don't want to risk your father-in-law's health anymore than necessary." Briggs saw it. The same kind of interaction he had with his deputy so long ago, God rest his soul. He looked at their faces. Scully and Mulder looked at one another. She moved her eyes from Mulder to the door. He nodded, and turned around to the hallway. Like clockwork. I bet these two are dynamos on the field, Briggs thought to himself. It's like they could read each other's thoughts. It was heart-warming. It was like God placed these two angels in his life to help him finish the one case he could never solve in over four decades of police work. "God, I promise I'll never touch another Reuben again." "Sir?" "Nothin, Scully. I'm glad you came." "It was the least we could do after all the help you gave us on the Tooms case. Your daughter told me you saw him again? That that was what caused your coronary?" "Agent Scully, please! Like I said on the phone-" the doctor began. "I know what we said on the phone Doctor Grimes, but the situation has escalated." "But my patient's heart rate cannot be escalated." "Sir. I'm a doctor, too. All the equiptment in this room, when it beeps, I know what it means just like you do. I promise you I can debrief Detective Briggs without escalating his heart rate." Brigg's heart rate did go up a notch, but it was because he felt like he was on the job again. He had a big smile on his face, "Doc? Couldya let this young woman do her job and I promise I'll start recuperating as soon as she's done." Doctor Grimes couldn't help but smile back at that face, "Alright. Five minutes." He left the room. "Escalated?" Briggs looked at her questioningly. "After I recieved your daughter's call, Mulder started digging. "Why do you two always refer to each other with your last names? Even when you're talking to each other. My deputies and I were always on a first name basis." "Frank," Scully said, changing the subject, "There was another case two days ago with the same method of operation. We haven't been called into the case. Mulder is trying to get approval for us to check out the crime scene, but anything you can say could be very helpful to us." "Another murder? Another liver cut out with no noticable means of entrance or exit from the room?" "Watch your heart rate, Frank," Scully looked over at the monitors nervously. "Alright." He took a deep breath. "Alright. I'll tell ya what I saw." Meanwhile, Mulder had walked down the hallway with Mister Warefield, "I didn't know about any of this until after Detective Briggs fell." "You're his son-in-law?" Mulder asked. "Yes." "Detective Briggs that sounds kinda formal don't you think?" Warefield sighed, "I respect the man, sir. He might look seventy to you but -" "It's alright. I respect him too. What did you see?" "Well, the man who was behind that counter at the deli. I'd never seen him before in my life, but his nametag did say 'Eugene'. And after we brought Detective Briggs here, Cheryl, my wife, she told me the whole story. She said this case ruined him thirty years ago. That he's never been the same since. Right after my father-in-law fell, the guy at the counter ran out of there like a bat out of hell. Maybe it's just circumstantial, but if you can go to that Deli and talk to the owner, I'm sure you'll find the man who committed those murders." "Well thank you Mister Warefield, but we did get him. I saw Eugene Tooms' die three years ago. I killed him myself out of self-defense." "The man who was in front of me was very much alive, sir. And I don't think Detective Briggs would have responded that way had it not been anyone else. He may be old, but I know for a fact he's not senile." "I agree with you. Do you think you got a good look at him?" "Very. He was the one who took my order." Mulder did a double-take, "you didn't eat any of the food there.." "Huh? No, I went to call for a doctor. We never got a chance to eat our Reuben sandwiches. I hear they're very good from that deli though. I hope to go back in a few days." "I suggest you wait about six months," until the next food inspector comes and goes. Mulder sighed, "I want you to speak to a couple people downtown and see if they can have a sketch artist draw up a visual of who you saw." "I'd be happy to." "Stay here. I'm gonna check on my partner." "Yes sir." Mulder re-entered Briggs' hospital room, and stood behind Scully. "..now he looked about twenty years older, but there's no mistaking the eyes, Scully. Those eyes have been haunting me for decades." Scully had no response to that. She just nodded. Occasionally those eyes would appear to her in her nightmares, ever since that night Tooms attacked her in her own bathroom. "I just spoke with your son-in-law," said Mulder. "He said the man behind the counter did have a nametag with Eugene on it. It sounds impossible, but if this guy isn't smart enough to change his name, we might not be looking at a copycat killer." "Is that what you thought?" asked Briggs. "Until now yes," said Scully. "I killed him myself, Frank," Mulder spoke as gently as he could, "I saw him die, in a way that no human being could possibly survive." "Haven't ya figured it out by now Agent Mulder?" Briggs looked him straight in the eye, "Tooms ain't human." ______________________________________ Towne Square Shopping Mall S. 66 Exeter Street, Baltimore Maryland June 2nd, 1997 10:13am "You look sceptical Mulder," Scully noticed the worried look on his face since they left the hospital. They were now walking away from the parking lot towards the mall. "No, I'm uh, just wondering if I should pick up some ties while we're here." "Let me pick them this time, okay? Remember. You're ren/green color blind." His cellular rang. He stopped and answered it. "Mulder. ...huh? Who is this?..." They stood there on the crosswalk. Mulder folded up the cellular and put it back in his pocket. A carhorn brought Mulder back to reality. They were in the middle of the crosswalk on the yellow striped lines, and a red Chevrolet was impatient to get past them. Mulder turned around and went back to the car. "Where you going?" Scully called off after him. "To swim with the fishes." he was feeling in his trenchcoat for something. He stopped and looked back at her, "keys?" Scully smiled and threw them at him across the roadway. He caught them in mid-air. "That's why I like to drive. I'll be right back! If I'm not here when you're done talking to the Deli owner, don't get me any paisley ties, okay?" She shook her head, and walked inside. The food court sign directed her through the mall. She passed the escalator. It hadn't changed much in appearance. Under that escalator, late at night three years ago, Tooms attacked Mulder. She felt a shudder as she remembered seeing Mulder throw the switch which kicked in the escalator, ripping Tooms into shreds, a single thick red trail of blood on the steps. How could anything live through that? It was impossible. She saw it herself. By the time she made it to the Food Court, food was the last thing she wanted to smell, but smell she did. Fried chicken, hamburger grease, pizza, and a thousand different tastes and scents wafted through the air. Tooms was working at the deli? Food handler by day. Bile-oozing mutant by night. It made her flesh crawl. "Can I help you ma'am?" "Yes I'd like to speak to the manager." "Problem ma'am? If there's a problem with the order-" "Uh, I didn't order," she said, fishing in her trenchcoat for her ID. She flashed it, "I'm special agent Dana Scully with the Federal Bureau of Investigations. I'd like to talk to the manager, please." "Is this about Gene?" a large sweaty man stepped out from behind the meat grinder and approached the counter, "I already spoke to the police and I don't know what he did to that poor old man, but he won't be working at this place again. I fired him this morning." "He was here?" "Yeah. Wanted to come back as if nothing had happened. I can get a dozen guys just like him. He was creeping out the other employees anyway, and his absenteeism-" "Was he here the night of May 30th?" "Well he never worked nights. We close around five, here. But he missed most of last week." "Are there any employees who befriended him?" "No. He'd only been with us a couple months. Kept pretty much to himself. I told him yesterday if he didn't start making it to work more, I'd have to let him go. The event with the old man, well that just was the straw that broke the camel's back." "I see. Could I look at his employment file? Do you have an address on file for him?" "Sure. Let me go get it." "Well, could we go to your office?" "Ma'am!" the large man waved his arms wide and proudly, "This IS my office!" ________________________ TO BE CONTINUED -- Operation Cobweb http://www.flash.net/~bobdobbs/xfiles From bobdobbs@flash.net Mon May 12 07:03:30 1997 Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: Eugene (2/3) From: Zachary Carleton -------- REVISION UPDATE - MAY 1997 XFILES FANFIC ARCHIVISTS: Please remove any other versions of this story from your archives. PLEASE ARCHIVE!! Title: Eugene (2/3) Author: Robin Starveling Rating: PG-13 (Language, Violence, Description of Adult Scenes) Classification: X -X-File Point Of View: 3rd Person Omniscient Timeline: This tale on June of 1997. It is assumed to be at the end of the fourth season. Spoilers: Focuses much on the episodes "Squeeze" and "Tooms" with occasional references to "E.B.E.", "Erlenmeyer Flask," and others. Keywords/Misc Descriptions: This is a "plotter" story, not a "relationshipper." Summary: Eugene Victor Tooms is back with a vengeance, and not even Scully and Mulder can stop him this time. DISCLAIMER TO END ALL DISCLAIMERS: The following contains characters owned by Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions. The intent is fan fiction. It is my understanding that Carter and 1013 are under legal restraints NOT to accept unsolicited ideas or manuscripts and this is not written to be considered for the series. If ideas or concepts contained herein are found in similar X-Files episodes in the future, I publically relinquish any rights to seek legal action against Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen or related organizations and corporate entities regarding my publically expressed USENET Newsgroup post. This is for entertainment purposes only. I give my permission for this to be sent to newsgroups & archives as long as my name, title, this disclaimer and other stuff stay with the work. That last sentence was stolen and altered from a very similar sentence by but s/he probably got it from someone else. Events and characters below are fictitious. Any similarity to persons or events living, dead or undead are purely coincidental. The Earth Is Flat. Feedback is appreciated. Please write to bobdobbs@flash.net if you have the inclination. ________________________________________________________________________ "We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence." - Charles Darwin 1809-1882 ________________________________________________________________________ Baltimore National Aquarium June 2nd, 1997 11:53am Mulder felt stupid. Every time a stranger's voice comes on his phone telling him to meet somewhere, off he goes like a well trained puppy. Deep Throat was dead. X was dead. The blonde woman who usually called upon him now, well the aquarium wasn't her style. It was a female voice though, but unfamiliar. Why would anyone from Cancer Man's world of subterfuge and intrigue be calling upon him now? Granted this was an X-file, but it certainly wasn't related to government conspiracies and cover-ups was it? It's just a lunatic mutant with a taste for human liver. She picked the same place Deep Throat had chosen so many years ago. Coincidence? Mulder looked at the sharks as they swam back and forth in their small underwater world. The 'aquarium' was a large glass wall that went almost from ceiling to floor, so you could see everything. It was uniquely peaceful, while at the same time the thought never left your mind just how deadly the creatures were on the other side, and how thin that wall of glass was. Deep Throat had told him about the sharks. Sharks have to keep swimming or else they'll die. "Don't stop swimming, Agent Mulder," he said. A tap on his shoulder brought him out of his morose reverie. He looked up and saw an exquisitely beautiful woman. Jet black hair. Could be of African-American descent, or perhaps just very dark Native American. It was hard to tell. Her fragrance was breath-taking. She was carrying a simple manilla envelope, in plain sight. Something the others rarely did. Could this be X's replacement? "I'm sure you know the drill," she said matter-of-factly. Her voice betrayed an accent, but of what kind he could not tell. It seemed to be a bit of everything. A very worldly woman, this one. "Can I sit down?" "I don't know, can you?" She fought back a smile, "You're cute. Look, I only have a few minutes..." Then she looked out at the sharks. "He always had a taste for the melodramatic didn't he?" "Who?" said Mulder, knowing exactly what the answer was. "You know. I thought it fitting to ask to meet you some place familiar." "You knew him?" "Well sometimes I worked for him. Towards the end he sort of worked for me." "Look. After him, I haven't had alot of success with -" "You people?" she said mockingly, "I'm kidding." "It's hard to tell with... you people. I mean you people call me up and we meet and," referring to the envelope, "I'm assuming this is for me." "Like I said, I have a few minutes. It's not often I get a chance to do this. Let me milk it for a bit." "I left my partner-" "And I want to thank you for that-" "-at the mall. I gotta go pick her up." "Oh alright. Ever hear of The Great Airship Mystery, Agent Mulder?" Mulder paused, "you've got to be kidding me." "Ah. I'm sure you have." "Some of the earliest X-files on record refer to it. In the late 1800s and early 1900s over twenty separate reportings of a curious cigar-shaped object in the sky, sometimes over major metropolitan areas, but few reports of large groups seeing it. Mostly individuals." "And this was forty to sixty years before the Hindenberg incident. Most of the reports date before the Wright Brothers invented the airplane. No one knew what a blimp was back then." "They weren't even called UFOs." "Unidentified Flying Objects. Still fits the description, don't you think?" Mulder thought he heard an unmistakable clicking sound. The lady stood up, "I've overstayed my welcome." She handed him the envelope. "Will I ever hear from you again?" "Probably not. Like I said, they don't let me do this very often." "Why you?" "Let's just say I have a personal interest in this particular branch of your field. Everything I know about it is in that envelope. Ciao." And she was gone, but her perfume lingered. Mulder inhaled deeply through his nose. He placed the envelope inside his trenchcoat, and stood up. "Good afternoon, Mister Mulder." Mulder was greeted with a man in a suit and tie, wearing a trenchcoat almost identical to his own. "Uh, hi. Is that a gun in your pocket or you just glad to see me?" "Come with me, Mister Mulder." "Let me guess, they don't let you do this sort of thing often either, do they?" "Who?" "Well you got that part down," Mulder immediately grabbed the arm inside the man's trenchcoat, spun around and aimed it at the aquarium. Just as he suspected, the man's itchy trigger finger fired, and suddenly a wave of broken glass and water filled with angry sharks came flooding into the room. Mulder threw the man with the gun into the first shark he saw, and ran like hell. __________________________ Phone Conversation Baltimore Maryland 2:49pm "You have to leave the mall immediately. They might know you're there." "Who? Look Mulder I'm done with the deli I was picking out ties for you-" "The Tooms case goes far deeper than we thought." "Deep Throat deeper?" "Yeah." "I thought he was dead." "It seems alot of that is going around. I'll explain later." She couldn't tell him she had taken a taxi immediately after talking with the Deli manager. She wanted to stake out Tooms' new address, and she had a gut feeling the mall wasn't safe. Maybe the gut feelings she saw Briggs get when they were at the Chemical Factory digging up one of Toom's victims from the thirties a few years ago was rubbing off on her. "Do you think they're listening in now?" "Could be." "Well then I'm at the mall and I'm going to stay until you pick me up, and if they come get me I'll just shoot them in between the Sporting Goods and the Shoes Section. But don't pick me up for a few more hours, okay? There's a sale for high heel shoes and I wanna get a few pair." "Scully, you never wear high heels." "I know. Perfect time to start, eh?" Pause on the line. He got it. Hopefully they didn't. "You women and your fashion sense." "There's a good boy," she was trying to sound uniquely out of character for her, but in character for someone who didn't know her. Someone who would make natural assumptions about people. She noticed in the years of working with Mulder that most of the people who bugged their houses and tapped their phones seemed to be a sort of 'Boys Club'. So she was gambling that they were male chauvinist pigs who would theoretically fall for stereotypes. "So I'll see you this evening then? When you're done shopping?" "Sure. You know, Mulder. I don't think Tooms is going to come back to the shopping mall. 66 Exeter Street is a dead end on both sides, you know what I'm saying?" "Yeah I think I do. We'll have to come at this from a completely opposite angle. We'll sleep on it and start fresh in the morning." "Take care of yourself." "Yeah I think I'll go buy me a Rueben sandwich." ____________________ Parked Rental Car N. 66 Exeter Street, Baltimore Maryland 7:34pm Scully climbed into the passenger seat. "What took you so long?" "Thought I had a tail. Didn't want anyone following me so I doubled back. I also had to dry out a bit. I was soaking wet." He picked up a bag from the dashboard and placed it in her lap, "and I thought you'd be hungry." "Actually after four hours of standing in the shadows I am. After that food court though, I didn't think I'd ever be hungry again." "I know. Gross huh?" She pulled a hamburger out of the bag and started unwrapping it. "You and your junk food." She rolled her eyes. "To think that anyone would hire someone like Eugene Tooms to make sandwiches." "Well, employees must wash their hands before returning to work, you know. It's the law." "So when I said I thought this address was a dead end from both sides, you caught on, eh?" "Yeah. He lives here?" "Well 66 Exeter Street was the address on his employment record, and the Deli manager said he once drove Tooms home to North Exeter. I didn't think he'd live in the shopping mall again after what you did to him." "I don't know Scully. Smells fishy." "You smell fishy," "I thought I aired myself out pretty well." "You were bleeding?" Scully noticed a gash on Mulder's forehead. "Nah. Just a scratch. I used a guy's trigger finger to release the sharks on him. It kinda got messy there for a second, but I'm okay. I got lucky." Scully noticed the manilla envelope in Mulder's hands. "What's that?" He handed it to her. "THAT is why I had to kill a half dozen sharks and a stupid guy with a gun in his pocket. I tell ya. Those guys they have chasing after us all the time when we get too close? They're digging from the bottom of the barrel. That last guy was real stupid. Deep Throat used to pick places like the aquarium for a very good reason." "Diversion tactics." "That's it. That last guy never took Diversion Tactics 101 in Secret Government Organizations School." Scully looked up from the file, "The Great Airship Mystery?" "I know. Sounded absurd to me at first too. Still sounds absurd." "Back in the 1800s there were sightings of UFOs?" "Scully don't you ever actually read the X-Files?" "I try to read only the ones you stick in my face." "Let me give you the short version. Almost a century ago there were around twenty sightings of a large airship hovering over major metropolitan areas on the east coast. Most of them were in Maine, New York or Pennsylvania. In a few cases alot of people saw it. In present day we attribute it to group hallucinations or mob hysteria. Most of the sightings, though they were in areas where even back then there were alot of people, only less than a handful actually saw the airship and reported it. Like only certain people were able to see it, or only a couple people wanted to go on record as being legitimate whackos. I'd have to go back to the office to doublecheck my memory, but in that envelope it talks of a sighting that occurred here in Baltimore around 1905, and I'm sure that's an X-File. I remember reading them and one or two were in Maryland. I've never given it much credence. I don't always pay alot of attention to X-Files dated prior to the Roswell incident in 1947, unless evidence after that time supports it. Only three people saw the airship here in Maryland in 1905 and reported it. But it made the front page on the local paper at the time." "Did the town crier announce it from the rooftops?" "Town criers were in the 1700s, Scully." "oh sorry." "So it is plausible that our friend Tooms is some kind of alien that was brought here a century ago, and he stays around here because he thinks they'll be coming back for him." "Plausible? You think that's plausible?? Mulder did those sharks eat your brains at the aquarium? This is the most absurd theory you've come up with." "You got a better one?" "I'm still trying to figure out how Tooms survived the escalator! One Great Mystery at a time, Mulder." "The airship was here in 1905. Tooms started his killings in 1909. They dropped him off and he's been here ever since, trying to survive until they come back to pick him up." Scully bit into her hamburger, grunting in disbelief. "Look, Scully. We already know from the preliminary physical studies done on Tooms when we incarcerated him the first time. He has physiological aspects to him that would warrant further study. We know his skeletal and muscular systems are highly abberant, and his metabolic rate is way below the normal scale. Let's say this guy can do more than just stretch and contort his way down people's chimneys. Let's say he has a conscious, deeply intricate ability to control the very genetic makeup that keeps him together?" "Mulder that would mean every cell in his body would have to have that same cognizant awareness. And I don't care what planet he's from. That is physically impossible. You're suggesting after you killed him in that escalator, that Tooms literally pulled himself back together?" "Maybe just parts of himself. Maybe not everything, and then he's spent the last three years growing back those parts of his body that he lost." Scully almost choked on her burger, "ugh! That's gross!" She wrapped the rest of the burger back up. "I'm not hungry anymore." "Sorry. And then the age difference. Maybe that took a great toll on him. Rebuilding himself might have taken all the strength that he aquired from those five livers, so he has to start all over. He looks twenty years older than he did three years ago, because he's still unhealthy." "Granted it's well documented that creatures like starfish, salamanders and some worms can sometimes grow back parts of their body that they lose in the wild, but they don't get grey hair when they do it." "And we know for a fact based on a case we followed together a couple years ago, that a scientist was once partially successful in combining human DNA with that of a salamander. Knowing what we do about Toom's anatomy, what's so far-fetched about him having the same ability?" "My father was right," Scully said in a huff, "I should have stayed in medicine." It came out of nowhere. They felt the car lurch, and a dark form appeared before them on their windshield. Those eyes! Black tar and sewage were all over him. He looked like a pit demon from hell, with a wicked toothy mouth ajar, and those eyes! Mulder reached for his gun. Scully cut a shriek short and reached for the car door with one hand, and her gun with the other. Tooms pounded on the windshield and broke through it. Glass was everywhere. Scully made a gunshot in the air as soon as she was out of the car, then drew it on Tooms. Tooms had reached through the windshield and was presently squeezing on Mulder's windpipe. "Federal Agent. Release him now!" "You ruined everything," Tooms said menacingly, "They'll never find me now." Tooms let go of Mulder, and made a flying leap over her head. She fired a shot at where he was, then looked up and turned around. Tooms was gone. Bushes rustling was all she could see in the dim light of the setting sun. Neighbors began coming out of their houses. Scully began walking around to the other side of the car, pulling out her badge, "Federal Agent. Please return to your homes and lock the doors." Like that's gonna help with this mutant killer, but at least they'd be out of harms way. She wanted to chase off after him, but she knew that would be unsafe without her partner. "Mulder are you alright?" Mulder looked as if the wind had been knocked out of him, and had bruises forming on his neck. He wheezed and coughed, and tried to get out of the car. There were more gashes on his forehead and face and neck now, but her medical opinion was that Tooms hadn't done any permanent damage to him. "WHERE IS HE!? Where is that bastard!" "Mulder calm down!" "DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!" Mulder's voice was hoarse but his eyes were on fire. Never had Scully seen him this pissed. "Mulder I'd like you to go to the hospital. There's glass in your face." "The HOSPITAL! In what? THAT!?" He pointed at the car, "Goddamn you TOOMS!!" "You're alarming the neighborhood let's just get out of here." Mulder looked at his arm. A small piece of glass from the windshield was lodged in his skin. He ripped it out and screamed. Blood flowed. He picked up his gun from the dashboard. "WHERE IS HE! WHICH WAY DID HE GO?!" "To the center." Mulder calmed down. He could smell her fragrance on the air. It almost broke through the bile and tar on his neck and clothes. "I was wondering when you'd show up." Scully and Mulder turned to see the woman who Mulder had met at the aquarium. She looked the same, only in the dim failing light of the daysky, he could see her eyes. They glowed with the same yellow-green light that they saw in Toom's eyes when he attacks. Only she was not attacking. She was standing there on the sidewalk with car keys in her hand, looking very calm. "You're one of them." "One of 'those people' yes." "Mulder, who?" "Scully I'd like you to meet the lady who I left you for earlier today." "Charmed," her voice chimed on the air. Mulder was a bit dumbfounded. How could something that beautiful be related to anything as evil and ugly as Tooms? "Uh, likewise." "Shall we go? I can call a towtruck to pick this up." "Why should we go with you?" "I had hoped the eyes would be enough." they stopped glowing, "I'd hate to give you further proof in the middle of a residential neighborhood." "You said everything you knew about this was in that envelope." "People were listening." "So that wasn't true?" "I'll explain everything in the car." "I'm not going with her!" "Scully," "I'm not going with her, Mulder! What do we know about her?" "I'm not asking you to trust me Agent Scully. Believe me, like Eugene I've learned not to even try that here. It's how I've gotten where I am today. You can keep your gun aimed at me if you'd like. If I try anything funny, you can shoot me. It will only take me a few months to get my face back. A little discomfort. You were right, Mister Mulder on all counts, as far fetched as it seems. Both Eugene and I have been here for a very long time." ________________________ TO BE CONCLUDED -- Operation Cobweb http://www.flash.net/~bobdobbs/xfiles From bobdobbs@flash.net Mon May 12 07:03:49 1997 Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: Eugene (3/3) From: Zachary Carleton -------- REVISION UPDATE - MAY 1997 XFILES FANFIC ARCHIVISTS: Please remove any other versions of this story from your archives. PLEASE ARCHIVE!! Title: Eugene (3/3) Author: Robin Starveling Rating: PG-13 (Language, Violence, Description of Adult Scenes) Classification: X -X-File Point Of View: 3rd Person Omniscient Timeline: This tale on June of 1997. It is assumed to be at the end of the fourth season. Spoilers: Focuses much on the episodes "Squeeze" and "Tooms" with occasional references to "E.B.E.", "Erlenmeyer Flask," and others. Keywords/Misc Descriptions: This is a "plotter" story, not a "relationshipper." Summary: Eugene Victor Tooms is back with a vengeance, and not even Scully and Mulder can stop him this time. DISCLAIMER TO END ALL DISCLAIMERS: The following contains characters owned by Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions. The intent is fan fiction. It is my understanding that Carter and 1013 are under legal restraints NOT to accept unsolicited ideas or manuscripts and this is not written to be considered for the series. If ideas or concepts contained herein are found in similar X-Files episodes in the future, I publically relinquish any rights to seek legal action against Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen or related organizations and corporate entities regarding my publically expressed USENET Newsgroup post. This is for entertainment purposes only. I give my permission for this to be sent to newsgroups & archives as long as my name, title, this disclaimer and other stuff stay with the work. That last sentence was stolen and altered from a very similar sentence by but s/he probably got it from someone else. Events and characters below are fictitious. Any similarity to persons or events living, dead or undead are purely coincidental. The Earth Is Flat. Feedback is appreciated. Please write to bobdobbs@flash.net if you have the inclination. ________________________________________________________________________ "We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence." - Charles Darwin 1809-1882 ________________________________________________________________________ Ripley's Coffee Shop Corner of N. Exeter and E. Baltimore 8:27pm The coffee shop had had a 'closed' sign on it, but the mysterious woman with Toom's eyes opened it without a key. It was left unlocked, she had said, by the owner. She knew him, she said. It was locked now. Mulder and Scully had cased the joint for any unseemly types or bugging devices, and were relatively satisfied. They were sitting together in a booth in the back, far from the glass window at the front of the shop. The lass had offered to make them something to drink but they of course declined. Scully admitted she didn't want to risk getting drugged. Oh I know the reason, the lady said, you think I swim in bile. Eugene and I evolved on different paths, she said. Mulder's patience was minimal. Scully's wasn't much better, "Why don't we start at the top. Who are you?" "Eugene would know me as Macy Gladys Tooms. Those were the names our wardens supplied for us before they left. We were ordered to remain near the drop site until they returned for us, but never gave a specific time. Most of the others died of malnutrition. As far as I know, Eugene and I are all that is left." "Wardens?" Mulder asked. "Well that is the closest word here on Earth for it. We were prisoners, placed here by our government because they couldn't keep us locked up. This intersection was the dropzone, ninety years ago. They ordered us to remain near here. Eugene listened. I didn't. "This is insane, Mulder!" "Scully, please." "Doctor Scully, shall I stretch my arms across the room to prove it to you, or would you rather just watch me eat a liver?" "Lady you could survive an escalator turning you into mush, but I'd still think you were a certifiable whacko." "Scully give her a chance. Whether when she's done you believe her story or not, it's obvious she knows more about Tooms than we do. Maybe what she has to say can help us." "What I'm saying to you I've only told one other man on this planet, and he's dead." "Deep Throat?" "I guess you could say he took me in when I was on the skids. "Eugene and I split up. He went into hibernation in 1909. It's something our kind used to do when trouble erupted. We'd kill animals around us, hoarding enough sustenance to survive, like your squirrels hoard acorns and nuts. Then we'd hibernate for a few of your decades, hoping things would be better when we awoke. As long as we were left alone on our own planet it was fine. It was when our kind began to be exposed to other societies, and exhibited this behaviour, that the government which conquered our planet began doing away with us. "I knew they weren't ever coming back for us. Oh, they put on a good show. They asked us to be patient and they would work out something, some way to incorporate us into their society and then they'd let us know, but I knew better. I was trapped here on Earth. Unlike Eugene I tried to make the best of it. "I took to the streets for awhile as a prostitute. Kill when I had to survive, to stay young. See, the creatures where I'm from are much more hearty, and offer more sustenance. Here, the only ones that have enough of the right nutrients to properly sustain us are humans. I would use rodents and stray animals when possible, but it wasn't enough. When I did kill humans I was much more careful about it than apparently Eugene has been. I'd shrewdly choose people who most of your society wouldn't notice missing. Street bums, runaways, prostitutes. By this time I had educated myself to the ways of your culture. Learned your language and your customs. It was around the late 1930s when I had read in libraries the folklore of your culture. How my kind were called cannibals, vampires, or worse, in this society. I really hated my existence. And then years later, I heard about the Roswell incident. "I had renewed hope. Perhaps they were returning, but when I found it, I realized it wasn't even them. Not remotely. They were members of one of the other societies out there who crash landed. 'People' who would have killed me on site had they escaped the crash before your government found them. "The people who run your government captured me, did tests on me. They talked about killing me for awhile. I didn't care anymore. I was too weak by this time, and was beginning to age again. A handful of scientists took me on as their pet project. They were able to discover what it was I lacked which I could aquire by eating them, and they just synthesized it for me. I still use their diet to this day. It has given me a second chance in life. I can to a certain degree be like one of you. "Your friend and my former boss, who has now passed on, first found me as a specimen in a top secret installation. Everyone had learned what they could from me and were basically just keeping me alive for their own twisted amusement. He took pity upon me and managed to find a way to set me free, on the condition I would work for him. I fell in love with him immediately. I was willing to do anything for him. When he asked me to kill for him, I did so without hesitation. Sometimes he even let me eat the liver. "I started as a faithful 'secretary' to him and for a time I was his lover. He was so dashing, then. It was back in the sixties. His career took its toll on him. I think being in love with me made him start to feel guilty about killing other aliens that would arrive here. He aged not very gracefully, but I still loved him. I still love him. "I learned quickly. He taught me everything he could on how to survive in his world. He understood me. Perhaps the only man on this planet with that capability. I had rudimentary knowledge of the society they had learned about from the Roswell incident, and became very useful to them in further endeavours, but he was carefully guarded in regards to me. He slipped me into his inner circle, gave me new false identifications because some would question that I was human, and I became a part of his team. Every time you and he met, Agent Mulder, I was there. I've heard every conversation. If things got dangerous, my job was to make sure the danger never got to him. When not working for him I had my own projects, and worked my way up the ranks in his unique little corner of your society. "But ironically I got promoted. I guess I did my job too well. That night when you gave him the parcel, Doctor Scully? That night he died? I was in Russia on a completely different project. I only heard about his death second hand." "When Tooms surfaced again, when you first heard about him, I wanted to find him then but was unable. Other previous engagements were in the way. By the time I could get involved I had already heard your successful end to the case. I thought all was lost until just a few days ago, when my fellow prisoner's activities surfaced again. When I learned you were on the case I gave you a call. "Does that answer all of your questions, Doctor Scully?" "Mulder, how accurate-" "Uhm... Gladys?" She chuckled, "yes." "Is it alright if I call you that?" "No one has for some time but it's the only name you can safely know." "From 1947 on, according to Deep Throat, a decision was made by major governments on this world to kill any aliens that were found from then on. Deep Throat said he was one of three to have done that in this country. How did you keep them from killing you between 1947 and the day you first met Deep Throat?" "There's a loop hole in that agreement. Eugene and I were dropped here in 1905. The agreement the American Government made was in regards to any aliens found from the Roswell incident on. Also, the American Government never told the other governments about me, so I was a well guarded secret of theirs for over fifteen years, until 'Deep Throat' found me in 1963. He had my death faked. As far as the government is concerned, the alien specimen they captured was dead, and a new me was born in '63. Only you two know about it now. With Deep Throat dead, my secret has been well guarded for the last few years." "Why tell us now?" "I need Eugene Victor. I'm all alone here. It would be nice to have some company." "If you were there at all those times when I met with Deep Throat, could you repeat any of those conversations for me?" "When I wasn't fending off someone who wished him dead, yes I was listening. He adored sports. He offered once to take you to a Packers game but said you two would not be able to sit together. You said that was a shame because he could probably get really good seats. I don't recall the rest because I had to check on a tourist that had just snapped a picture of you two together. Of course, he was no tourist." "Mulder?" He leaned back and smiled, "I'm convinced." "Well I'm not." "Doctor Scully the first time you met the man you call Deep Throat, it was at Pandora street in a warehouse. I don't recall the conversation because I wasn't there. I heard about it second hand, but you had never met him prior to that time, am I correct?" "Yes, but..." "Even if you are not willing to admit that I'm from another planet, even if you think I'm insane, you can't doubt the fact that I at least knew your Deep Throat friend before his death." "And you've come back now to help us stop Tooms?" Mulder asked. "Well this time I'm here to take him back with me. I would like to try to rehabilitate him, as 'Deep Throat' did for me." "Tooms must be made to suffer for his crimes." "Doctor Scully, that's why Eugene Victor is here. On your planet. To suffer for the murders on our government's home planet. That's why I'm here too." "I'm still not willing to accept that he's what you say he is, or what you say you are!" Gladys sighed. "Then we are at an impassse. Eugene Victor comes by this intersection every night he can and looks up at the sky. However I'm the only one who is going to be able to find him because he never comes by the same way twice." "How do you know?" "I know my people, Doctor Scully." "What would you like us to do?" "If I'm unable to detain him, I may require you two to shoot him for me. Take him down, weaken him enough so I can call my chopper in and fly him out of here." "Mulder are you crazy? We're going to let him get away again!" Scully stood up. "I promise you, Doctor Scully. Once I have him detained he will never again be allowed to hunt your people. I will see to that." "Scully if you trust me then trust her!" "I only trust you, Mulder. Not people who pass your mettle. I'm sorry but I can't participate in this. I have to call all this in to Skinner." "Always by the book, eh Scully?" "YES, Mulder! A few hours ago YOU were ready to eat Toom's liver-" "Our kind don't have livers-" "-and now you're ready to capture him like a wounded dog and throw him into her kennel! You're always out there, Mulder but this time you've gone too far!" She walked away from them and started heading for the door. Mulder stood up, calling off after her, "Scully, please. Give us one night to catch him. If we don't succeed then you can call Skinner." "Doctor Scully," Gladys' voice was calm but firm, and echoed through the dark, empty coffee shop. Scully turned around, "WHAT?" Gladys' eyes were glowing. She stood up and walked in front of Mulder, "Standard procedure that 'Deep Throat' taught me dictates that I cannot let you out that door if there is even the slightest possibility that you're going to reveal to anyone who I am-" Scully instinctively pulled out her gun and drew it on Gladys, "If you want to rock and roll bitch, I'm ready for you now!" "Scully!" Gladys took one more step towards Scully, "However! 'Deep Throat' also told me many times that if there was anyone else on this planet who I could tell who I am in confidence, it was you two. He spoke in regards to you both highly admirably. Frustrated at times. He often referred to you as 'boy scouts' in my presence. It sometimes actually sickened him how pristine and proper you were, how impossible it seemed to discolor or discredit either of you. I think in some ways he envied you both-" "Do you have a point to this 'Gladys'? Or are we going to see just how long it takes for you to heal from several bullet wounds?" "'Deep Throat' always told me to trust no one, but when it came to you two I was always led to believe he'd make an exception. Now he died believing that, but I'm willing to make that same mistake. So go ahead and walk out that door. I won't stop you. I just want you to understand the risk I'm taking here, and why I'm taking that risk." "Why?" "Because Eugene Victor is the only link I have left to my world. He is the only other creature on this Earth besides 'Deep Throat' who could ever possibly comprehend me fully, and if I can bring him back to me, it will make this world just a little bit less lonely." Scully stood there for a long moment. The tension in the air was thick. She put her gun in its holster, backstepped away from them both until she made it to the door. She unlocked it by touch, never taking her eyes away from Gladys' glowing yellow green eyes, opened the door and left the building. "Should I go after her?" Gladys' eyes returned to 'normal'... "Hopefully we won't need her. Now time is short. We have to work fast. He usually tries to come by around midnight." "How do you know?" "I know my people, Agent Mulder." __________________________ Roof of Ripley's Coffee Shop Corner of N. Exeter and E. Baltimore 11:42pm Mulder had positioned himself on the top of the roof, as Gladys requested. He purposefully placed himself in full sight, not trying to hide. He was relatively in the middle of the area, with nothing nearby that Tooms or anyone could climb through or behind and sneak up on him. He had his gun drawn out, standing firm, occasionally turning in place, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Occasionally he'd go to the edge of the building, and look down. Gladys said Eugene wouldn't just walk down the street, but Mulder felt he knew Tooms as well. If this Gladys really was one of his kind, if he had somehow found out she was there, then he'd probably try to do something unpredictable. He liked a challenge. Mulder knew that much about Tooms, if nothing else. He liked a challenge. "Gladys, can you hear me?" Gladys had given them special cellular handsets which were set to what she called a 'restricted channel.' She said the range wasn't great, but since neither of them planned to leave the city blocks around the Baltimore/Exeter intersection it would serve their purpose. "Yes. In fact I can see you from my vantage point." "How? Are you on one of the other roofs?" Mulder looked out into the darkness. Gladys only chuckled. "I'm good, aren't I?" Mulder continued looking around, looking for yellow green eyes glowing back at him, chuckling, "yeah you're good." "You are too. Both you and Scully. If we're successful tonight I'm going to be very busy for a very long time, rehabilitating Eugene Victor, but if I could I'd offer you two the same protection I offered our friend." "Well thank you. I have a question that's been bugging me." "Yes?" "This may be very closed minded on my part, but I have to ask. Eugene is white." "Yes?" "You're black." "By your society's standards that is a satisfactory accessment. Our pigmentation is different." "How are you related? Your last names are both Tooms." Gladys laughed, "All the people from my planet who were brought here in 1905 were given the last name of Tooms. The government that left us here gave us those names. Our actual birth names are not articulatable for you, and one of the syllables in my name would probably pop your eardrums." "Oh. Okay. Just had to ask." "We're not directly related except by species, and our species is not hung up on skin color differences, unlike your own." "That's good to hear." "Agent Mulder! Behind you!" In Mulder's conversation, he'd let his guard down. Eugene shot out of the dark from nowhere, and was clawing on Mulder's back. He was completely naked except for street grime and bile, grappling with Mulder like a wild bear. The pounce sent Mulder reeling across the roof. They tumbled and rolled to the roof's edge. Mulder was able to make out a fire escape below them and about ten feet away. Both his gun and the cellular headset fell off of him, and plummeted to the ground below. A good four or five stories away. Eugene was scratching and clawing. Mulder found himself hanging from the edge of the roof with one hand, Eugene climbing on top of him. With his free hand Mulder slammed Eugene's head into the wall. This stunned him, but he didn't let go. Mulder gripped the edge of the roof with both hands and tried to make his way to the fire escape. Eugene was only stunned for a few seconds. Mulder thought for sure he heard a crack, as if he had broken Eugene's neck when he slammed Eugene's head into the wall, but not even that seemed to stop him. He made it to the fire escape, his flesh searing. It felt like Eugene was ripping the skin off of his body one strip at a time. Mulder kicked Eugene loose as he fell onto the fire escape. Eugene grabbed onto the railing on the outside. Mulder ran for the stairs. He made it down one floor but Eugene dropped down from above, smiling menacingly. He looked like a savage, and was growling like a wild panther. He taunted Mulder, blocking his escape down the stairs, making playful swipes at him with his long arms. How could Gladys even hope to rehabilitate this monster? After so long. Whether Gladys and Eugene both had any equivalent of "humanity" where they came from, or whether Gladys aquired humanity during her years with Deep Throat, Mulder couldn't possibly see how this humanoid creature before him could aquire any now. Mulder was at the far edge of the stairwell. He had nowhere to go but up, but if he went for the stairs, he knew Eugene would be on him again. Eugene's knees bent, and it looked like he was going to pounce again, but just at that moment, Gladys flew in from above, wearing black fatigues. She had been on the same roof Mulder was on the entire time! With one fluid movement, Gladys wrapped herself around Eugene and threw both herself and him off the fire escape. Both Gladys and Eugene toppled off the fire escape and down at least four floors to the alley below. Nothing to break their fall. They both hit the pavement hard with a sickening thud. Mulder rushed down the stairs, wondering how in hell he'd be able to assist, because by the time he got to the last landing of the fire escape and reached the ladder, both Gladys and Eugene were on their feet again. "Eugene Victor! This is Macy Gladys! Cease!" then she said something in an alien tongue that Mulder couldn't understand. She was right though. Some of their vowel sounds were ear splitting. He slid down the ladder and went immediately for where he hoped the gun had fallen, but Eugene was on top of him immediately, after faking out Gladys like a rusher in a football game. "You've destroyed everything!" Eugene growled, "They're never going to find me!" "Eugene Victor! They will not return! It's been over fifty-" and then something else that Mulder couldn't understand, not that it mattered. He was on the ground now on his back, drool from Eugene's lips falling onto his exposed chest. Eugene placed his left hand on Mulder's gut, and his right arm flew up into the air, fingers bent like claws. Gladys was directly behind him, pulling back on Eugene's arm with all her strength, but they were an equal match. It was a stalemate. She wasn't able to pull him off Mulder alone. Eugene was going to feast, and Mulder was going to die. Shots rang out from the mouth of the alleyway. Six rounds in a smooth, perfect fashion. One of them went into Eugene's skull, and blood splurted all over Mulder. The others were perfect shots in the chest. Gladys let go of Eugene's arm in stunned astonishment, looking back out the mouth of the alley. The force of the impact would have thrown any common man back, but Tooms remained on top of Mulder, staring at him with glowing eyes. Then the glow melted away, and Tooms remained stiff and unmoving like a gargoyle, poised over Mulder, his right arm ready to fly down and enter Mulder's abdomen, but instead, he fell forward. Mulder pushed the body away, and crawled over to the wall nearby, which he used to help him stand up. At the mouth of the alleyway, sihloetted dramatically by a streelight behind her, was Special Agent Dana Scully. Gun still drawn in front of her, feet in the standard stance for a gun shooting. Her trenchcoat flowing behind her by the wind of the street. "You alright, Mulder?" "Yeah." Gladys limped over to Eugene's body, fell down in a heap, and cradled him in her arms. A thin sliver of streetlight shone down on them from the mouth of the alley. With a bullet wound in Eugene's forehead, he looked very dead, but to Mulder's mild surprise, Eugene Victor Tooms opened his eyes and looked up into the face of Macy Gladys. "y-you came back." he said. "they-they're coming back you know." "No, Eugene Victor. They will not come back. I came back though. I want to take you with me." "Where?" "I want to take you home." "Home? That sounds nice." And Eugene Victor Toom's eyes closed again, his face like that of a baby. Scully wanted to say something, but she knew not a prison on this world could hope to detain either of them. She was going to have to hope to God that Gladys was properly rehabilitated, and could do the same for Eugene. Gladys pulled out a walkie talkie from her belt, "Chopper One this is Variable. Mission accomplished. Will meet you at the Drop Zone. Out." "C'mon Mulder," Scully put her stance at ease and placed her gun inside her trenchcoat. "Let's get you to a hospital." "Hospital?" Mulder said with a chuckle, "That sounds nice." He started walking towards the opening of the alley. Gladys was on her feet, and held Eugene with one arm. She stretched her other arm and grabbed the top railing of the fire escape. Then she turned and looked at Mulder and Scully, "Doctor Scully?" "Your secret's safe with us Gladys." "Thank you. Deep Throat was right. You are two of a kind." Mulder stopped next to Scully and turned around, "Gladys will we ever see you again?" "I hope so. Deep Throat promised you a Packer's Game. I'd like to honor that some time." They watched her climb up the fire escape and reach the roof. As they walked away from the alley, they heard the sounds of a chopper. "Why'd you come back?" "I still don't believe in any of this, Mulder," Scully opened the driver's side of the new rental car she just got, "but I couldn't stand the possibility of losing you." "I guess in that regard you and Gladys have something in common." Scully sighed, "I guess so." ____________________________ END OF EUGENE A work of X-Files Fan Fiction by Robin Starveling -- Operation Cobweb http://www.flash.net/~bobdobbs/xfiles