From: diamante@cheerful.com Date sent: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 13:26:48, -0500 Title: Mind Game (1/1) Author: Christina E-mail address: diamante@cheeful.com Rating: PG Catagory: XH Spoilers: none Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST Summary: Scully and Mulder go to Connecticut to investigate suspicious mind-swappers. Disclaimer: Scully, Mulder, etc. aren’t mine, they belong to Chris Carter and 10-13. I make no money off this. Please, no one sue me; I baby-sit for a living. I’d appreciate any thoughtful comments and criticism, but no flames. This is my first attempt at writing fanfic, so please be kind. Thanks to the gang who read this as it came; they had some great ideas and comments. Love you all! Basement of the J. Edgar Hoover Building November 12 8:58 AM Scully tossed her trench coat onto a vacant chair as she entered Mulder’s cluttered office. Sidestepping a crumpled, empty bag of sunflower seeds that had missed the garbage can, she asked her partner, "Mulder, do you ever go home?" "Occasionally," he replied absently, absorbed in whatever he was reading. "Whenever I need to rid my apartment of pesky DOD spies." Scully had left him here last night, furiously typing a report of their last case. From the rumpled condition of his suit, he really hadn’t gone home. Scully regarded her partner with an odd look of exasperated affection, but swallowed her next comment and asked instead, "What are you reading?" "It’s our next case, Scully," Mulder told her. "Great. What’s it this time? Liver-eating mutants? Seductive shape-changers?" She winced inwardly at the memory of the drunken night with Eddie-as-Mulder. "No, actually," Mulder replied, oblivious to her sarcasm. "There are these people up in Connecticut whose personalities will totally change for a period of time, then return to normal, only to have no memory of the time in which their persona was absent." "Split personalities," Scully diagnosed. "Rare, but not impossible. Where’s the X-File?" "The persona emerges in someone else while it’s absent in the first person." Mulder waved the file. "It’s all here." "Mulder, are you saying these people swap minds?" Scully’s skeptical tone would have stopped anyone but Mulder in his tracks, who only looked at Scully with admiration. "I hadn’t expected you to get it that quickly." Mulder grinned. "You usually look for, and I quote, ‘a scientific explanation for this’, unquote." Scully started to fire back a retort, then stopped mid-breath. "I say that a lot, don’t I?" "It’s your trademark. That aside, Litchfield County has reported an increased number of thefts, arsons, and murders since this mind-swapping business has started." "Could it be related?" Scully asked. "Possibly, but I don’t really see how. At any rate, Skinner wants us up there ASAP. And pack warmly. They just received four inches of snow." He grimaced. "Snow? It’s the middle of November! It’s still fall!" Scully exclaimed. Mind-swappers were bad. Snow was worse. "What can I say? It’s New England." Litchfield, CT 3:37 PM "I assume you made the reservations?" Scully asked, seething. "Snow Bunny Motel sounded...interesting." Mulder stared glumly at the rabbit-on-ski decor. "I didn’t realize they meant actually rabbits." "What else were you expecting?" Scully demanded. Realizing another, more adult meaning of the phrase "snow bunny" she quickly added, "Actually, I think I don’t want to know." She sighed and resignedly dropped her suitcase next to the dresser. "Mulder, why do you always pick the worst motels?" Litchfield Police Station 4:53 PM "Do you remember inhabiting another body?" Scully gently asked the suspected mind-swapper, Cheryl Silven. Mulder paced impatiently in the background. Interviews were not his thing. He was much more at home tracking down alien craft. "No," the frightened woman answered, her voice wavering. "Why are you asking me all these questions? I didn’t do anything!" "No one said you did," Scully wearily reassured her. This was the third person who had no idea their mind was popping up in other people’s bodies. Someone’s not telling us something, Scully thought as she tried a different tactic. "Have you ever heard of Larry Armstrong?" Scully asked, naming the man who had given the police the list of names that included Silven’s. "Of course!" Cheryl’s eyes lit up. "I used to live with him. How is Larry?" Well, here’s something interesting. Aloud, Scully said, "Mr. Armstrong was arrested last week for possessing and being under the influence of illegal hallucinogenic drugs." She paused as Cheryl digested the information. "What was your relationship to Mr. Armstrong?" "Oh!" Cheryl exclaimed, blushing. "We didn’t have a relationship. Larry ran the commune I lived at during the late seventies." Mulder suddenly stopped pacing and entered the conversation. "Did you use drugs during the time you lived there?" Scully recognized the ah-ha! look in Mulder’s eyes and reflected she had been looking for this particular connection during the last three interviews. She said nothing. "Well, sort of, um, kinda, well, yeah," Cheryl stammered. "Will I be charged?" she asked timidly. "Not for drug use," Scully answered. "Unless you’re using now?" She made the statement of question. "Oh, no, no, no!" Cheryl vehemently denied. Scully let the subject drop. A drug bust wasn’t what they were after. She continued. "Tell us about Mr. Armstrong." "Larry, well, he was a genius! Always tinkering in his lab." She smiled reminiscently. "Sometimes he’d let us try his experi--" Cheryl Silven abruptly keeled over, her head striking the table with a sickening thud. Scully jumped to her feet and began searching for a pulse, while Mulder contacted the officer waiting in the room next door. "Get a paramedic in here!" Mulder shouted much to loudly into the intercom. "She doesn’t have a pulse, Mulder," Scully calmly informed him. "Our interviewee doesn’t have a pulse." Mulder relayed the information, listened for a moment, then shouted, "No, we didn’t kill her! Just get someone in here!" Moments later, paramedics hooked Cheryl up to oxygen and wheeled her out of the interrogation room. Why are there always bodies? Scully asked herself silently. Snow Bunny Motel 5:42 "No, officer, we have no idea why Silven died." For the third time, Mulder amended silently. "Would you like to talk to my partner? As a doctor, she might have a theory." Mulder grinned as he passed the phone to a scowling Scully, his hand covering the receiver. "Have fun!" "Thanks, partner," Scully replied dryly before taking the phone. "Hello, officer," Scully greeted, sounding civil. "No, I don’t know why Cheryl Silven died...Officer, my partner was merely speculating. I have no theories concerning Silven’s death...Sir, you have the tapes, audio and visual, of the interrogation." Scully’s voice was tightly controlled. "There was no way for either of us to have harmed the suspect." She listened for a long while. "Yes, officer. Nonetheless, I would like to assist at the autopsy, since you have made it clear I am not permitted to perform it myself...Yes, thank you. 8 AM tomorrow. Yes. Thank you. Goodnight to you, too." Scully hung up the phone and her courteous, professional facade evaporated. "Of all the narrow, simple-minded, pigheaded fools--!!" she exploded, then stopped as she caught Mulder’s concerned eye. "It’s been a very stressful day," she stated primly. "I don’t like interviewing people, especially those who swap minds, I like it less when they drop dead mid-sentence, I like it even less when I’m accused of killing them, and I hate it when I can’t do an autopsy to see what killed them!!" She took a deep breath and slowly expelled it, glaring at Mulder when she heard his soft chuckle. "I’m sorry," he apologized, still laughing, and making a very bad attempt at looking contrite. "It’s just that I’ve never seen someone that upset because they couldn’t probe into a dead body." Scully looked perplexed, then started laughing as well. "I guess it is unusual," she conceded. "Maybe even paranormal." Relieved Scully’s uncharacteristic tirade was over, Mulder said, "Scully, I talked with the Lone Gunmen about the case." "Oh? What did they have to say?" "Well, aside from Frohike’s numerous requests for an article of your clothing, they had some interesting information. Larry Armstrong was employed by the DOD from the mid-seventies until the early eighties. He was apparently in charge of some large program." "What program?" "They couldn’t find exactly what, but Langley gathered it had something to do with experimental equipment being developed to enhance telepathy and other mental powers." "Oh, wonderful," Scully sighed. "Why aren’t we chasing aliens?" Amici’s Litchfield, CT 7:37 PM "So Armstrong is into mind games?" Scully asked rhetorically, twirling a ribbon of linguine around her fork. "That could explain things." "Scully, why don’t we not talk about the case tonight?" Mulder said. Uh-oh, Scully thought. Mulder was very drunk. Scully looked at the near-empty bottle of wine between them and realized that she, too, was very drunk. She thought of all the things that could happen when two people were drunk...together...No! Where was her self-control? Mulder was her partner, dammit! Not some one-night stand. "Mulder--" "Because I would much rather talk about this veal marsala. This place has the greatest food! Byers told me about it... Oh, I’m sorry. What were you saying?" Scully reflected that she had been reading one too many romances and resolved to read more enriching literature. She was also drunker than she thought. In the meantime... "Nothing, Mulder. Absolutely nothing." Snow Bunny Motel November 13 7:00 AM Beep! Beep! Beep! Scully groaned and slapped the alarm off. She groggily tried to sit up, then stopped when the wallpaper bunnies started to do 360’s. She had one hell of a hangover. She hadn’t had a hangover in...well, a long time. As the world slowly spun back into place, Mulder, clad only in a pair of black silk boxers, bounded through the door that connected their rooms. "Rise and shine, Scully!" he said, much too loudly for this early in the morning. "You get to dissect a dead body with narrow, simple-minded, pigheaded people today! Doesn’t that sound like fun?" Scully slowly sat up, rubbed her eyes and demanded of her over-exuberant partner, "Mulder, what are you doing?" Scully shielded her eyes as Mulder switched on the bedside lamp, nearly blinding her. "And why as you so cheerful?" "I was talking to Frohike and I just happened to mention we went out to dinner last night. Needless to say, he was very upset." Scully reflected that a brilliant psychologist should have more respect for people’s feelings and asked Mulder, "I don’t suppose you ‘happened to mention’ that nothing happened, did you?" Although, something might have, Scully added to herself. "Oh, shucks, I forgot!" Mulder looked genuinely stricken, for all that it was an act. Scully tried to wobble to her feet, but quickly decided that was a bad idea when Mulder started to multiply. Finally noticing her intense discomfort, Mulder asked her sympathetically, "Hangover?" Scully started to nod, but thought the better of it and merely said yes. "Try a cold shower. Usually works for me." Then his expression subtly changed and he offered, "I can help." "Thanks, but I can handle it," Scully said, one eyebrow raised, giving him a Look. This time she made it to her feet, rummaged through her bag and extracted a bottle of aspirin. She popped two in her mouth, swallowed them dry, then considered and took a third and fourth. Next to ruining a pair of expensive shoes with radioactive alien slime, there was nothing Scully hated more than a headache. Suddenly realizing she was dressed only in a very skimpy, very sheer nightgown, (her customary silk pajamas being at the dry cleaners), Scully grabbed her clothing and said, "I think I’ll take that shower now." "Okay, call me if you need me," Mulder replied, lounging on her bed. She threw him another Look, and made her way to the bathroom. Litchfield, CT 7:52 AM With both partners fully clothed and ready for action, Scully and Mulder climbed into their rented sedan, and headed towards town. "So you’ll assist and observe at Cheryl Silven’s autopsy," Mulder stated, "while I head down to the station, and see if I can get a look at the audio and visual tapes of the interrogation and try to find something that we missed." He pulled up to the entrance of the hospital and Scully let herself out. "Good luck." "You, too," Scully replied. Morgue of Litchfield Hospital 8:07 AM "Yes, sir, I realize that you are the doctor assigned to this autopsy. However, I’m working on a case for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Cheryl Silven’s death is related to that case. I would like to examine to body after you have determined to cause of death. Is that an acceptable compromise?" Scully didn’t like kissing ass, and she had had to do a lot of that lately. She was in an extraordinarily bad mood, brought on by that, the fact that the overly bright autopsy lights were compounding her hangover headache which the aspirin had nothing to relieve, and having to deal with the pot-bellied Dr. Strauss. The backwards man could simply not get his mind around the fact that Scully could be both a doctor and a woman. She felt her tendency towards violence gradually increasing. "You’re sure you’re a doctor?" the man asked dubiously. "Yes!" Scully affirmed impatiently. "Can we please get on with it?" "All right, all right. Calm yourself, woman." Scully bit her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood in an attempt to forestall a series of rather rude remarks regarding Dr. Strauss, his parentage, and his procurement of a medical license. It didn’t work. Litchfield Police Station 8:07 AM Mulder sat down and set up the cassette player and VCR. He fast-fowarded the cassette until a few moments before Silven’s death. He heard Scully’s voice. " ‘Tell us about Mr. Armstrong.’ ‘Larry, well, he was a genius! Always tinkering in his lab.’ Cheryl paused. ‘Sometimes he let us try his experi-’ Then a thud, then Mulder heard his own voice played back. ‘Get a paramedic in here!’ " Mulder stopped the tape and played it back again, louder, then slower. Nothing. Mulder muttered, "Let’s go to the videotape," and popped the video into the VCR. He located the moment before Silven’s death and played it frame by frame. Not expecting to find anything, he watched dejectedly, trying to think of some other way to determine the cause of death. Wait! Rewind. What was that? In frame 132, just before she died, Cheryl tensed up and her eyes looked like they bulged out for half an instant before she fell over. Mulder pulled out his cell phone and dialed Scully’s number. "Scully." "Scully, it’s me." "Mulder, I’m in the middle of dissecting a corpse and my insurance is not going to pay for another damaged cell phone. I just barely convinced them that my last phone was, in fact, ruined by a freak waterspout." "This is important. I was reviewing the video of the interrogation and it appears that Cheryl Silven was electrocuted." "Electrocuted, Mulder? Where was the source?" "I don’t know, but she looked electrocuted. Maybe the source was internal." "Mulder, what are you saying?" "Maybe Armstrong implanted something in Silven’s brain to prevent her from telling too much. Remember, she was on the brink of something that could have been very important?" "Mulder..." "Just check it out, Scully. Or have you found another, more mundane cause of death?" "No," Scully sighed. "Heart’s okay, no hemorrhaging anywhere, everything looks fine. Except for the fact she had high levels of LSD and PCP in her bloodstream. But it wasn’t enough to kill her, especially if she had been using the stuff since the seventies." Scully hesitated. "Look, Mulder, we’ll do a CAT scan, but I’m not promising anything. Okay?" "Sure. See you later. Bye." "Bye." Mulder pocketed the cell phone and left to do some investigating of his own. Litchfield Hospital 10:48 The CAT scan technician watched as the results of the last test appeared on the screen. Everything so far looked normal, except for being dead... "What the hell is that?" the technician muttered and contacted Dr. Strauss. Location Unknown 12: 06 AM "Mulder." Mulder answered his cell phone in his usual curt manner. "Mulder, it’s me," Scully said. "The CAT scan showed on object imbedded in the Cheryl’s cortex. We excised it, and it’s an ingenious little device that creates a small but lethal electrical current. I can’t figure out where the power comes from, though." She asked, "How did you know?" "I’ve got a knack for this sort of thing. Look, Scully, I’m really busy at the moment. I’ll call you when I find anything." "Okay," Scully replied. She was too used to this to worry, but she was annoyed. He couldn’t tell her where he was or what he was doing? "Bye." Mulder put away the cell phone. "All right, Armstrong. Tell me what you know." Steve’s Burger Place 12:35 Scully picked half-heartedly at her burger. She hated eating alone, especially in a restaurant. But it was this or dining with Dr. Strauss, and Scully couldn’t take one more minute of his pompous, superior airs. Besides, even after her initial verbal barrage, she could tell he would try to make a pass at her. Didn’t they all, even Mulder...Mulder. What was with him this morning? Did he genuinely feel something for her, or was he just feeling especially horny today? Scully took a small sip from her Sprite, and tried futilely to turn her thoughts to the case. Where was Mulder? She hadn’t heard police station background noises, but she had heard someone with him. They had sounded male, so that ruled out one possibility. She hoped. That aside...where the hell was he? Location Unknown 12:35 "Don’t give me that crap, Armstrong," Mulder ordered. "I know you know the answers to some questions that I would very much like to have answered. Trust me, I can make you answer them, but it’s really not pleasant. So why don’t you just tell me?" Mulder made like he was scratching his ear and turned on the recorder. He wanted this on tape. "I don’t have to tell you anything," the short little man sneered, a nyah-nyah tone to his voice. "They’ll protect me." "Who? The DOD?" Armstrong looked surprised for a moment, then regained his composure. Mulder continued, "They’ll deny everything and leave you to your own devices. Forget the naive fantasies, Armstrong, because it’s not going to happen. Now, why did Cheryl Silven die?" Cowed, Armstrong reluctantly answered, "She said too much." Mulder just stared at him, giving a fair impression of Scully’s raised eyebrow Look until Armstrong continued, "I monitor all my students all the time." He shrugged. "How, exactly, do you manage that, Mr. Armstrong?"Mulder asked, making the "Mr." sound like an insult. "Telepathy. The drugs enhance the reception, if you will." "Oh, of course. So how did you kill her?" "That’s the easy part. I merely diverted the natural electrical currents in the brain to the conductor, which amplified the current and killed her." Well, he made it sound sane, thought Mulder. "And you did this by telepathy, I presume?" "Oh, no!" Armstrong answered, sounding shocked. "Telekinesis. Telepathy is the ability to communicate via the mind, while telekinesis is the ability to move or deform inanimate objects by the power of the mind." Armstrong, in his element, would have babbled on, had not a sharp look from Mulder quelled him. One mystery down, one to go, thought Mulder. "Okay, Armstrong, now how did you swap their minds?" Litchfield Police Station 12:47 "What do you mean, he’s gone?" asked Scully incredulously. "He’s gone. We checked on Armstrong an hour and a half ago and he was sitting quietly in his cell. Now he’s gone. Sorry to interrupt your lunch, Agent Scully, but this is a major crisis." The police chief fidgeted nervously. "If this guy gets loose..." It has to be Mulder. It just has to be. He did this with that Roche character...Out loud, Scully said, "I’ll be on the lookout, but I really don’t see what I can do." Where would Mulder have taken Armstrong? After working together for so long, I should be able to read the man’s mind... "Sir, I have an idea. I’ll be back shortly." Armstrong Residence 12:52 "Mulder!!" Scully yelled, banging on the door of Armstrong’s former commune. They had to be here. "Mulder!" Pulling out her weapon, Scully crept cautiously around the corner of the house. Spotting the entrance of an old bomb shelter in the backyard, Scully inched across the lawn towards the tumbled down structure. She hesitatingly knocked on the door, waiting for it to collapse. When it didn’t, she knocked once more, harder, and called Mulder’s name. "McDonald’s. How can we help you?" Mulder quipped as he poked his head out of the door, Armstrong in tow. "Mulder, what the hell are you doing?" Scully raged. "Abducting a prisoner without posting bail is a serious offense! Don’t you ever learn? What were you thinking?" "Nice to see you, too. And I believe the correct term is ‘kidnapping,’ as you yourself once informed me. But Scully, he got here on his own." Snow Bunny Motel 1:24 PM "...so Armstrong teleported out of his cell to his house, to where you followed him and he told you what is on the tape," Scully recapped, her glance briefly flicking to Armstrong, who stood cuffed to the bar in the closet. "We’ll discuss the plausibility of that later. But what about the X-File? How do these people swap minds?" "Well, that was a bit more bizarre," Mulder replied. "Armstrong, you take it from here." "The people who lived at my commune were hand-picked for their above average mental capabilities. With training and practice and the help of the DOD’s technologies, they became extremely skilled in manners of the mind. But they didn’t know that during some of the hypnosis sessions, I had telekinetically implanted the conductors in their brains. I also set up corresponding keywords while they were hypnotized that would trigger mind-swappage. The drugs they were provided were altered forms of the originals, which enhanced there mental powers." "But why?" Scully asked. "What was the point?" "The DOD wanted them because they could do anything while swapped and not remember it. Pass any polygraph test. Once they had fulfilled the DOD’s needs, I used then for myself." "Thus carrying out a personal vendetta against your enemies in and around Litchfield," Mulder supplied. Armstrong nodded. Scully leaned over and whispered to Mulder, "What’s keeping him here? If he can teleport, why isn’t he leaving?" Mulder opened his mouth to speak, a worried look on his face, but Armstrong beat him to it. "Good question," he said, just before he disappeared, leaving the locked handcuffs swinging from the bar. "Shit," Mulder muttered. *** A man walked through the Capitol building and placed a small package behind a statue, and walked out onto Capitol Hill, which was bathed in the bleak winter sunlight. Moments later, an explosion boomed behind him, the force knocking him to the ground. He stood up, looking dazed. "Excuse me," he asked a stranger who was staring transfixed at the burning, crumbling Capitol building. "Where am I?" "D.C.," the woman replied automatically, her attention on the blaze. "That’s funny," he muttered. "That’s a long way from Litchfield." *** So, what do you think? Feedback can be sent to diamante@cheerful.com. Thank you!