From: AHaynes33 Date: 25 Jul 1998 15:29:35 GMT Subject: "Fate of the World" (1/1) by Anne Haynes DISCLAIMER: The characters of this piece belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions and the Fox Network. I mean no infringement. CATEGORY - Vignette RATING: PG-13 for language SPOILERS: US Season Five plus the movie "Fate of the World" by Anne Haynes AHaynes33@aol.com The bastards had taken Agent Scully. He'd seen it coming since London, since Strughold had lisped his grammatically atrocious observation about Fox Mulder's Achilles heel. He just hadn't known it would happen so soon. He paused briefly in front of the laboratory door, wondering if they had bothered to change the lock after Benita's unexpected demise. He still had the key from those days, but since her death, he hadn't been able to bring himself to this place again. Too many memories--her flashing eyes, her ready smile. She had been sunshine in the midst of a shadow empire. Her death had extinguished almost all the light in his world. Only his daughter, his grandchildren remained to shed any sort of warmth or illumination upon his bleak existence. And for how much longer? The date was set. He looked around him, down the darkened corridors of the Rockville, Maryland, facility. It slumbered, unconcerned that somewhere at the end of the earth, a military aircraft was en route to an Antarctic base, carrying the possible fate of the world in its belly. He took a deep breath and tried the key in the lock. For a moment, he felt resistance, but then the grooves slid into place and the key turned. Click! The door opened. He entered and closed the door behind him, resting briefly against the door panel, allowing his heartrate and breathing to return to normal. He had left cloak and dagger methods behind him years ago, when he rose in the ranks of the Project. He was management, not labor. The spy game no longer came easily to him. But the most recent meeting of the syndicate had forced him to face a cold, unrelenting fact. He no longer wielded influence. His wishes meant nothing. He was powerless. When had it begun? Upon Benita's death, when his relationship with the virologist had, no doubt, been exposed to the others by the Smoker? Or had it been even earlier, when he'd foiled the plans to kill Agent Scully in her own home? That had been Benita's doing. "Agent Scully is the key," she'd told him when they had discovered the plan to remove Agent Scully as well as her presumed-dead partner. Benita had believed that Agent Scully, more than Agent Mulder, held the key to the resistance against their extraterrestrial overlords. "She's a scientist. He's a fucked-up dreamer. Whose hands do you really want to hold the fate of the world?" He crossed to the cryo-unit tucked in the far corner of the laboratory and rapidly punched in a five digit code. A red light blinked at him, warning him of his error. Damn it! He held up one trembling hand. Neatly manicured. Soft from his more genteel lifestyle of late. No longer the hand that had once snapped the necks of ten men in a covert mission in France. No longer steady enough to punch in the right bloody code? He took a deep breath. He would have only two more chances before an automatic alarm went off, alerting others to his presence in the laboratory. But the access code he had was the only one he knew. More slowly, he punched in the five digits again. 3-5-2-5-3. He waited, his breath trapped in his lungs. A green light blinked on. Wilting with relief, he opened the storage unit and scanned the vials inside. He was looking for a particular number-- the newest version of the vaccine, stolen from the Russians and delivered--however grudgingly--by Comrade Krycek. There. He withdrew the small vial of vaccine from the storage unit and shut the door. The lock reengaged. Only one more thing to do now. = = = = = = = = "Despite the accent, I'd have never figured you for the James Bond type." Alex Krycek's voice, emerging from the shadows of the Rockville facility, almost made him drop the small velvet case he held in his left hand. "My God, Alex. Is everything a theatrical event with you?" "Whenever possible, old man." Krycek's teeth glittered in the low light. "Get what you came for?" "Yes." He didn't elaborate. Krycek rattled the car keys in his right hand. The sound was like thunder in the quiet night, making the older man wince. "For God's sake, Alex--" "Where to?" "Falls Church" The man slipped the vial into one pocket and retrieved his cellular phone from another. He dialed a number and waited for the one word answer. When it came, he tersely gave an address in Falls Church and a time--one hour from the present. "Who'd you call?" Krycek asked. He glanced at the younger man but didn't bother to answer. "I know this is about Scully." Krycek pulled the car into the light flow of traffic on Rockville Pike. "I heard they took her again." "You're hired to drive, Alex. Not to think." "I warned the Smoker about her years ago. It's why they took her the first time." The young man's voice held an odd mixture of pride and regret. "But they misunderstood me." Curiosity overcame the need for silence. "In what way?" "They thought I meant she was important to Mulder. That by taking her, they could cripple him." Krycek met the older man's eyes in the mirror. "But I meant that with or without Mulder, Scully was the real threat. Without her, Mulder's a paper tiger--all sound and fury--" "--signifying nothing." Krycek nodded. "He's nothing but a fucking fly we don't dare swat for some inexplicable reason." Krycek glanced at the mirror again, as if looking for elaboration. He was hardly the first to wonder why Mulder was allowed to live. But the answer was too complicated and byzantine to explain. And at this point of the game, the "whys" were largely unimportant. Krycek released a sigh. "But Scully can ruin the Project." "Is that what you believe? That she's a problem to be solved?" Krycek shrugged. "She makes Mulder less vulnerable to certain kinds of manipulation." "And more vulnerable to others." "Because he loves her." Krycek's lip curled. "The ultimate soft spot." Indeed. The image of Benita Charne-Sayre flitted through the dank shadows of the older man's mind, bringing sunshine and heat for all too brief a moment. He cleared his throat softly. "Kill Agent Scully, and your paper tiger may well rip your throat out." "Until his rage gets him killed." There was that. "Then look at it another way, Alex. You no more desire to be a slave to our visitors than I do. That's why you sold us the Russian version of the vaccine, is it not?" Krycek's head inclined slightly in assent. "And Scully's science may hold the key to perfecting the vaccine." The older man nodded, oddly pleased that his mercurial protege also saw the truth that seemed to escape the grasp of the other members of the syndicate. "And only Mulder can save her," Krycek added. "He's the only son of a bitch with the balls--and the incentive-- to go get her. That's where we're going, isn't it? To send Mulder on a search and rescue mission? The older man answered with silence. Eventually, yes. That was exactly where he was going. But first, he had other business to tend to. Once they reached Falls Church, he told Krycek where to park the car. He got out of the back seat and started to walk up the sidewalk to the taxi stand near the corner. "I'm not driving you?" Krycek asked through the lowered car window. He paused mid-stride and turned to look at the younger man one last time. "You can thank me later." End AH My XF Fanfic is stored at http://members.aol.com/ahaynes33/index.htm