Date: 26 Jan 1999 21:00:52 GMT
Subject: An Orwellian Death (1/12)


Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully, and Skinner don't belong to me.  They are
property of Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox.  I didn't make them up and I
don't own them.  

Archive: Not without my permission.  To gossamer: yes, but only if you
list it under the author name DS254.  

Category: Pure Case File

Rating: somewhere between a strong PG and a mild AA

Summary: Mulder and Scully investigate a plague that only seems to affect
those living in poverty or sorrow.  (It'll make sense when you read it.)

Warning: This is very depressing piece, having written it after watching
"The Killing Fields."  It also deals with some very contraversial issue,
one of them being poverty.  Very few people have actually been able to
discuss poverty without sounding self righteous and I'm not one of them. 
The way I handled that issue and a couple of others may be offensive to
some people.  

Author's Note: This version is revised but not by much.  If yo had read
the first few parts before, you don't have to read this again.  Just bear
in mind that I changed the native tongue of the girl in the beginning from
Choujong to Mandarin and the events of the first part of the story
happened three years *earlier* than the events in the second section.  I
should also add I don't know much  about bombs and medical procedures.  

Feedback: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!  I'll accept flames!!  (Of course, I'll
argue with you back but that could be fun too!)  

- - - - - - -

An Orwellian Death
by Hong Te
 
      October 31st, 1999, was the coldest Hallowe'en night in all of 
Ontario's history.  The wind was bitter, nipping against the bare cheeks 
of the children who walked down the street like the cold tips of steel 
needles.  The children were bundled up, even though it was only mid fall
and 
five thirty in the evening, with their costumes pulled over their snow 
suits.  They wore gloves or mittens which their held their candy bags 
with.  People who answered the door wore sweaters or jackets, and 
answered the children quickly before shutting the door firmly against 
the wind that was threatening to rob their house of its warmth and 
comfort.  

      It was so cold that Hallowe'en night that trick-or-treat ended at
seven 
that evening and eight people in the city of Ottawa died that night from 
the cold.  One of them was a fourteen-year-old Oriental girl with waist 
long black hair.  She had been waiting for her younger sister to come 
home with their two-year-old nephew.  It was already seven ten, and they 
had been out for longer than an hour.   
 
      Her mother was furious.  "I told her not to go out longer than
fifteen 
minutes," she said in  a high-pitched tone that told her daughter she 
was truly upset.  It also irritated her daughter to death.  Her mother, 
as far as the girl was concerned, had the most annoying voice in the 
world.  "It's cold out there," her mother continued, her irritating voice 
continuing to pull her daughter nearer to the brink of suicide.  "And 
Didi cannot go out for long.  It's cold, and he's only two years old.  
He'll freeze."  
 
      "The flowers are turning into ice," her daughter noted.  She spoke
the 
same Mandarin her mother had voiced her anxiety earlier, only hers were 
broken.  She didn't know how to say "frost" in Chinese.  "He's going to 
get really sick."  She was also worried, a tight kind of worry that 
seemed to grip her heart and make the room around her hard to breathe 
in.  It was cold outside, and her sister had been out with her friends 
and their nephew for a long time.   Everyone else was already at home.
 
      "Can you go out and find them?" her mother asked.  "She could stay
out 
longer, but Didi needs to be home now."
 
      The girl normally would have whined and told her mother to shut the 
hell up because she was worrying too much, but the girl herself was 
really worried as well. Hallowe'en was fun, but she also knew about the 
added danger that came that night.  Really, opening doors to strangers and
taking time get the candies was an invitation for a psycho to pull out
their 
gun and kill you on the porch.  And children and young teens such as her 
sister could be easily grabbed off the streets, raped, and killed.  

      She shuddered at the thought and donned on her blue breaker over her 
Vampire Princess Miyu costume.  She loved her costume.  It was a 
beautiful white dress with a red sash tied at the waist.  Her mother had 
made it for Anime North that summer.  She also had tied her up in the 
same style that Vampire Princess Miyu wore on TV with the red ribbon 
wound around her ponytail.  It was a stunning costume, and wearing it, 
she felt beautiful.  She had once told her sister she had wanted to die 
in that dress and be buried in it.  

      The wind came in a startlingly cold gush of air when she opened the 
door.  She shuddered and took a quick step out, closing the door quickly 
behind her.  Her mother watched her from the window on their door.  She 
looked worried, probably reconsidering sending her remaining daughter 
out in the cold night.  
 
      The wind was strong, and there was also something else in that air
that 
made the night colder, but she couldn't put her finger on it.  Something 
that made her blood freeze when she walked down the stone veranda.  She 
pulled the windbreaker tighter around her.  The trees were bare, the 
leaves fell off their branches earlier this year, and there wasn't a star 
in the sky.  She looked at the moon through the wisp of clouds and 
prayed that nothing was wrong with her sister and her nephew.  
 
      I'm going to kill that kid when she gets home, she thought to
herself.  
She doesn't have a clue what she's putting me through.   

      And yet, the girl couldn't help but admire how beautiful it was 
outside. She was usually imprisoned in her house, doing chores, 
homework, watching anime; she didn't go out often and was surprised how 
pretty it could get after dark.  If only it wasn't so cold.  She 
clenched her jaw and shuddered against when another gush of wind passed 
by her legs.  Her stomach suddenly knotted in cramps which caused a 
shudder to pulse through her entire body.   Her fingers were numb and 
she was sure she was going to be unable to type the next day.  She 
suddenly wondered if freezing to death was as painless as it sounded.  
 
      It was strange she thought about death at that moment because she
had 
no idea how close to it she really was.  Or maybe she did.  She suddenly 
thought of herself in her Vampire Princess Miyu attire, standing there 
in the cold with her favorite dress on, the moonlight softly touching 
the white silk.  She loved that dress, and remembered what she said 
about wanting to be buried in it.  

      And her wishes, sadly enough, always came true.  

      She wasn't surprised when she saw them right then, dressed in ugly 
monster masks and brandishing their smooth, polished baseball bats at 
her.  But she was scared, more scared than she had ever been in her 
life.  The fear, the panic, she felt the last few minutes of her life 
cannot be described adequately on paper.  She turned to run, hoping that 
fate was busy with someone else and she might be able to elude her, but 
the heavy blow to the back of her frail shoulders brought her down to 
her knees and then rolling into a crumped ball in the middle of the 
streets.   The only thoughts that went through her mind as her attackers 
began to pick her up off the streets was, "This isn't happening to me!"  
And yet, she had  known it was her fate to die that night in that 
fashion a long time ago.  

      A neighbour opened their door then and yelled that he had a gun. 
Luckily
for the girl, it was the first time her attackers had kidnapped someone 
and in their fear, they dropped her on the ground where she slammed her 
head against the pavement. Pain radiated in waves from the top of the 
head down to her gut, but she managed to crawled away from her would-be 
kidnappers.  They got in their car and rode off.
 
      It was dark however, and all the Hallowe'en lights had been turned
off.  
The neighbour didn't see the body of the young girl had been dropped.  
He thought her attackers had driven off with her so he went back inside to 
call the police.  The girl managed to stumble to the end of the block.  

There was a 7-11 store and a school there that she used to walk between 
as a shortcut to her house.  However, half way through the alley, the 
intense pain on her back and shoulders and the dizziness in her head 
caused her to collapse on the ground.  The hot rush of blood that had 
been pounding in her cheeks while she was being attack was slowly 
dissipating and she suddenly realized just how cold it was.  The cramps 
and nausea returned, and her bloody teeth began to shudder from the 
cold.  She was bleeding, gasping out blood onto the white satin of her 
dress.  The blood only came then, strange enough, and that was a shame 
because a trail of blood on the sidewalk could have lead the police who 
were arriving at the scene at that very minute to her and they could 
have saved her.   Broken bones could be mended, but once the body 
temperature drops below freezing, nothing short of a miracle could 
save someone.  
 
      But she had to die that night.  Someone else besides Fate
had taken his precious time to make sure all the circumstances worked out, 
clumsy and coincidental as they were.  Destiny had to go as planned.   

      She really shouldn't have made that deal with the devil.  

 - - - - - - - - 

Three Years Earlier
December  1996 

       There was one month left before the arrival of the New Year. 
Mulder 
decided to act out the stereotype of his paranoia to its full extent as 
he dropped the latest case file on Scully's desk.  "The End of the World 
has arrived three years earlier than planned, Scully," Mulder announced 
as the file made a nice plopping noise on his - their- desk.  
 
      His partner looked up at him.  "Excuse me?"
 
      "Eleven people are dead," he informed her, opening the file as he
did 
so.  His voice was dry and monotonous, notifying his partner that it was 
grim case.  "Six in Canada and five here in America.  Out of the five, 
three happened in New York City.  The other two were from Chicago."  He 
flipped over the pictures of the victims as he talked, and Scully saw 
black-and-white pictures of what looked like a regurgitated hamburger.   
"I thought we had to wait until year 2000 for the apocalypse, but it 
looks God decided that December, 1996 was going to be his year of holy
reign of  terror and righteousness on this Earth."  
 
      Scully wasn't paying attention.  She was sifting through the 
photographs, looking at every line and shade in the picture.  "Oh my 
God, Mulder," she said, disbelief clearly evident in her tone of voice, 
but her expression, as usual, was deceptively neutral.  "It looked like 
they were  experimental labrats of a hydrogen bomb test."
 
      "I was thinking the same thing," said Mulder, "but look at the 
surrounding area of the victims."
 
      Scully did, searching for typical signs of fallen rubbles, burned 
houses, broken windows, and other people who was harmed during the 
explosion.  She saw what Mulder was getting at.
 
      They were none.

      "Mulder, it's not that uncommon for someone to explode and only
effect 
themselves and not those around them," Scully protested, obviously not 
buying into the paranoia of the case so far.  "Chances are explosives 
weren't involved in this case.  There have been instances where people 
have had compressed air hose inserted down their throats or up their 
rectum and the air pressure cause their body to blow apart.  In those 
cases, it takes the authorities several days to find every body part of 
the victim."  
 
      "There were no air pumps involved with these cases, either," Mulder 
said.  "And while I'm not well informed about air pump explosions, I'm 
pretty damn sure the bodies of the victims in those situations aren't 
incinerated to the point of ashes."  

      "No, Mulder, you're wrong there," Scully said.  "I'm not too
familiar 
with the effects of a death by compressed air hoses, but from what I've 
been told, it's like an atom bomb detonation.  And we know that atom 
bombs /can/ incinerate the point of ashes."
 
      "Nevertheless," Mulder said, undaunted, "the point remains there 
definitely were no air pumps or anything other instruments to add 
pressure to these victims.  Forensic physicians can't find the cause of 
these any of the deaths.  These victims were simply sitting the on 
streets, panning for money, in one case, digging through the garbage 
looking for food and minding his own business, and they all suddenly 
exploded with a warning.  No air pressure, no explosives, nothing.  They 
simply blew apart."  
 
      The paranoia aspect of the case slowly dawned onto Scully.  "But,"
she 
said, and stopped.  She stared at Mulder.  Four years of aliens, 
abductions, monsters,  and man eating toilet inhabited parasites did 
nothing to make Scully less insidious of the paranormal.  "It's 
impossible for somebody to explode without there being a cause for the 
explosion.  Something had to set these people off."  
 
      "Couldn't the bomb be planted inside of them to begin with?" offered 
Mulder.

      Scully shook her head lightly.   Running a finger over the glossy 
surface of the photos, she explained, "it's virtually impossible to 
plant a bomb inside somebody.  That's just an invention of Holly Wood 
spy movies.  The closest thing you can get to that is appendicitis and a 
malfunctioning pace maker."

      Mulder shrugged.  "I guess that's why they handed the case to us."

      Scully tilted her hair to one side so that her fine strand of
red-gold 
hair brushed against her shoulders and gave him a hard look.  "Don't 
tell you me you think this is the work of that oil thing we found at the 
bottom of the Pacific Ocean."

      "I'm not ruling out any possibilities," he told her seriously.  "But
it 
could be a possible explanation to what made these people explode since 
nothing else does.  Both cases are pretty similar to one another."
 
      "Are you kidding?" Scully exclaimed.  She picked up one of the
pictures 
in the file and shoved it in Mulder's face.  "Do these look like 
radiation burns to you?"

      A clear grimace crossed Mulder's face as he stared at the tiny,
chewed 
up remains of a human being.  "The explosion was so intense it probably 
erased the signs of a radiation burn."  

      Scully relunctantly admitted it was possible.  "But about the two
cases 
being similar," she added, "the victims of that oil weren't  exploded into 
a million pieces."
 
      "Maybe the oil substance could be mutating.  Either way, this is an 
unexplainable phenomenon, and I think it falls in our jurisdiction."
 
      Scully nodded, and then close the file.  "So exactly what are we
going 
to investigate?"
 
      "They have the body - or what's left of it - of a homeless man in a
New 
York City morgue.  And they have some eye witnesses who were present 
when the man exploded."  

      Scully blinked.  "You mean people actually saw the man explode?"

      "Four of them actually.   None of them were physical harmed,
although 
they're all supposedly traumatized for life.  Looks like the 
psychiatrist business will be blooming now. Our plane leaves tomorrow 
afternoon, if that okay with you?" 
 
      A quick smile from Scully.  "I got nothing planned," she admitted.  
      
      She liked it when Mulder was this considerate.
 
 - - - - - - - 
 
      The killer sat in her homeroom class, drawing pictures for her
family 
history project.  Her teacher came up to her.  "My God," she said, 
staring at the picture.  She was completely taken back by the student's 
ability to draw.  Everyone in the school knew the girl was a talented 
artist but each picture she drew never failed to take the teacher's 
breath away.  "It's extremely powerful."  


       The killer nodded shyly, but with obvious pride.  She was in grade 
seven, but drew better than everyone else did in grade eight.  Her 
newest piece was a disturbing one, and a brilliant one at that.  There 
were seven skeletons half buried in dirt, their bony hand reaching 
toward a fading sun.  The sun was red, the only bright color in the 
picture, even if was fading.  Everything else was brown, grey, or black.  
The sky was grey, the wispy dirt the skeletons were sinng into was 
brown, and the skeletons themselves were black.  Around the picture, in 
the border, were twisted vines of dying leaves and dried up fruit, all 
painted black.  

      The killer was a genius.  There was an obvious hunger in the
picture, 
an abject pain.  The teacher looked at the picture and felt shivers 
crawling down her spine.  The skeletons seemed to be calling out to her.  
She cleared her throat and tried to summon up moisture to her mouth.   

"Is this for your family history project?" she asked.

      As it was in her nature, the girl didn't nod or shake her head in 
confirmation.  She merely said, "they're my dead brothers and sisters.  
They died in the killing fields before I was born.  I couldn't make my 
family history project without mentioning them."  Her voice was oddly 
unisex and emotionless.  She could have been talking about what fine 
weather they were having outside.
 
      The teacher felt a pinch in the back of her neck, the one feels when 
they realize they said something they didn't want to say.  "I'm sorry."  
 
      The killer looked up and smiled sadly at her.  "It doesn't matter,"
she 
assured the teacher.  "I didn't know them."  
 
      "Still," her teacher added, "it must be hard on you and your
family."  

      "It is," she murmured and looked intently at her artwork.  For a 
moment, the skeletons seem to stare at her, accusing her of something 
 she was unable to do and hating for it.  At least, it looked like that to 
the killer.  

       It was then the teacher noticed two other pictures the killer was 
working.  They were beneath her poster paper that they were to glue their
family 
history pictures and stories onto.  One of them wasn't as powerful as 
the other one, but it was just as chilling.  They were faceless people 
with bony bodies and large bellies picking food out of garbage cans, 
being beaten by soldiers, and drinking water that was black in color.  
Polluted water, the picture so clearly portrayed.  
 
      Poverty.  The girl was barely twelve; it was an age where she was 
suppose to be thinking about boys, sleep overs, and horror of developing 
breasts.  But these pictures were a clear part of her mind, and she saw 
the girl draw them often enough.  They were literally the junk in her 
mind.
 
      /Which kind of a twelve year old girl thinks about poverty all the 
time?/
 
      She glanced at her student, who was deepening the black border with
a 
fat marker.  The killer sense her looking at her and her bloodless lips 
twitched into a contemptuous grimace, as if she knew what the teacher 
was thinking of her and she was ashamed of it. 
 
      The teacher looked at the next picture.  This wasn't as chilling,
but 
it was far more violent.  The picture was done entirely in red, yellow, 
and orange.  An explosion.  It was a charcoal picture of the same 
faceless people being bombed to death.  The bright red, yellow, and 
orange splashes of color filled the paper to the corner.  It was done in 
an abstract manner, yet there was something real about it.  The teacher 
felt the force and pressure of the bomb while she looked at the picture.  
For a moment, she felt that she was witnessing a bloody, violent death 
of someone on the streets.
 
      That picture unnerved her for the rest of the day.  She didn't 
understand why that picture had such a powerful and frightening effect 
on her.  And she didn't understand why that night, when she turned on 
the news and heard the story of brutal bomb death of two homeless people 
in Ontario, she thought about that one picture.

End of Part 1
Continued in Part 2



Intro and Disclaimer in Part 1

An Orwellian Death  (2/7)
 
"Well, here is it."  
 
The pathologist pulled the body out of the refrigerator.  Scully's eyes 
widened when she saw the garbled up remains and Mulder's usually
pacifistic face twisted into an expression that he usually reserved for
squirming maggots.  

"Was it Jezebel who was thrown off the tower and had her body devoured  by
dogs until there was nothing left except for her skull and the palms of
her hand?"  Apparently, Dr. Timm had a sense of humour.  He was a short
man of nondescript appearance, the  uncle that you saw once at a family
reunion.  

"I always wondered exactly what evil she had committed that had coined 
her the most degenerated woman in the whole Bible," said Scully.  She was
always  amused when anything related to the Christianity was mentioned. 
The amusement was evident in her eyes, even behind the plastic goggles. 
She wore her scrubs and hairnet.  So did Mulder.  They didn't want any
hair or fingerprint or even the smallest skin particle to fall onto the
dead  bodies.  

"I think being a ne'er-do-well and homeless had something to do with it,"
Mulder quipped.  He
looked at a charred, broken finger, ripped off from the socket.   "You 
think God had something against them?"
 
"So now you think this is the work of God," Scully said.  "What happened 
to your theory involving that oil substance?"

"What oil substance?" Dr. Timm interrupted.
 
"It's nothing," Mulder told him quickly.  
 
Dr. Timm shrugged and said no more.  They worked for the government and 
that was enough of an explanation for any weirdness that came from them.  

"Has there been an autopsy?" Scully asked, walking to the body.
 
"Several," admitted the doctor.  "We're positive the man died of an 
explosion, but we can't determine what caused the explosion."  

Scully leaned over the body and prodded at it with an instrument that 
reminded Mulder of that rod his dentist used to tap his teeth with.  She
rapped at a protruding  white bone and moved some charred skin tissue
away.  Then she said something that Mulder had heard her say a lot of in
the last four years: "I have never seen anything like this before."

She continued: "Definitely, the explosion was an internal one, if you  see
how the organs and the
inner layer of skin were incinerated, but if there was a bomb inside the
person, then there had to be an epicenter from where the body exploded
from.  But I can't find which part of the body it
exploded from.  It's more like the body crumbled than exploded."
 
"But he definitely exploded," Dr. Timm told her.  "The witnesses were 
sure of that."  
      
"Can we interview the witnesses?" Mulder asked.  
 
"I don't see why not, but I should warn you, they're very traumatized by 
the experience.  I don't blame them.  Seeing someone die isn't as
glamourous as TV makes it.  It's not even glamourous. It's just disgusting
and sad, and the explosion had a devastating effect  on the bystanders,
specially an older man who was a veteran of the Vietnam war." 

"We've interrogated witnesses before," Scully assured him, "and we know 
how sensitive the situation can get and how far we can push them."
 
Relief crossed the pathologist's face.  "I'll give you a list of their 
names and you can go see them whenever it's convenient for you."

"Thank you," said Mulder.  He started to leave the morgue.  Scully decided
to stay behind.  She wanted to review the samples that arrived from the
toxicology lab  earlier that morning and take
another look at the body.  "What do you hope to find, Scully?" he asked, 
his hands on the door.  

Her eyes never left the cadaver.  "I don't know," she murmured.  "But I 
don't think I'll find it."

Mulder felt the same way as he went to interrogate the witness.  He had  a
feeling this was going to be one case they wouldn't be able to solve.   

 - - - - - - - -
 
The killer's mother asked if she wanted to put a Christmas tree that 
year.  When she had been a
small child, before she had understood what it really meant to have  seven
dead brothers and sisters, she had always loved putting up the Christmas tree.

"No," the killer said.  "It's too much trouble to put up a tree.  We're
Chinese.  It's ridiculous for us to try to act so Canadian."   

Her mother was relieved in one sense.  They didn't have a put a tree  that
year and it would save everyone the hell and hassle that came with it.  On
the other hand, she  didn't enjoy seeing her daughter so empty of
emotions.  Ever since the seizure, the girl had been distant and cold.
There were no more talks about being a missionary, no more walks to enjoy
the fresh air against her pale cheeks, no getting up early to fix
breakfast for her parents;  she even stopped reading her Bible.  That
scared her mother the most.  Before the seizure, she had  been devoutly
religious.   

The girl had been prone to depression, and religion was the crutch that
helped through the hard times.  Now that she ceased to be religious, her
mother feared that the girl would be depressed and forlorn the rest of her
life.  
 
"Are you sure you're okay?" her mother asked, concerned.  "Go get some 
sleep."

"I just got back from school."

Her tone was so harsh and cold.  Before, even during the lowest times of
her depression, her voice had been soft and gentle.   Her tone of voice
made her mother angry.  "Don't talk to me like that."

Her daughter swung to look at her.  "Don't treat me like glass," she 
snapped.  "It was only a seizure!  I'm fine!"  She felt a perverse sense
of satisfaction when she  saw the anger deepen in her mother's face and
fear begin to show in her black eyes.  Her moment of satisfaction was
spoiled when she saw another faceless person lying on the side of the 
road, bleeding.  

"Excuse me, Ma, I got homework," she said crisply.  She slid off her 
chair and ran up the stairs.  

The vision faded and didn't appear again until she was in the safety of 
her room.  She went over to her desk and sat down.  Over her desk was a
large window where she  could see her backyard. 
It was winter, and a light blanket of covered the ground.  She stared  out
the window but she
didn't see the snow or the sky or the trees.  She only saw a faceless 
person, dressed in rags, bleeding on the side of a road.  Whether or not
this person was dying,  she couldn't tell.  She only
knew he was in pain.  
 
Then again, every faceless person that visited her mind was in pain.  

/I'm doing them a favor.  I'm putting them out of their misery.  I'm just
shooting the wounded puppy on the street that no one wants to look at./

She closed her eyes slowly and saw the man more clearly.  He was bleeding
from a wound in his chest.  He had been stabbed there and from the way his
body was curled up and his his hands were pressed against his chest in an
effort to stop the blood from flowing, it was obvious he was in more agony
than he could bear.   The killer was glad she couldn't see his face.  

/You're not going to be in much pain for long./

She watched him explode, the red and yellow and orange splashes of color
filling her vision for a moment.  When she opened her eyes, the vision was
gone.  She was alone.  

For now anyways.  Another one always visited her mind soon after the last
one died.  

 Her eyes never left the window, but her hands moved under her desk and
pulled some paper out
of the shelves.  Methodically, she reached for some markers and charcoal
and without realizing
what she doing, without looking at the paper, she started to draw.  It 
wasn't long before a hideous smear of red and orange and yellow covered
the page.  

This was the way the people she killed were remembered after death.  The
pictures she drew were their tombstone, and the three solid Chinese
characters she scrawled on the top was the engravement.  

"Sorry."

- - - - - - - - - -

Mulder found Scully in her hotel room that night.  She was sitting in
front of the desk and the table lamp was turned on.  She held a stack of
papers in front of her  which she was reading carefully.  Her shoes had
been removed, but other than that, she looked  as professional and
pristine as she did every morning at work.  
 
Mulder walked up to her and leaned over her shoulders.  He placed on hand
on top of the chair and another spread out on the table beside her.  He
looked at the  documents she was reading  As he had suspected, she was
looking over the toxicology reports.  "Did you  find anything?" he asked.
 
Scully shook her head and laid down the paper.  "Nothing," she replied, 
looking at him.  Her
voice was slightly awed which was unusual for her.  "I checked 
everything, the pictures the forensic team took, the sample of the dirt
they collected off the ground  where the victim exploded.  I couldn't find
a single thing that could even hint to what did this.  The dirt was
bloodied, but other than that, it showed no chemical tampering.  I even
went to the site to see if there was a gas station nearby.  There was
none.  The man literally exploded by himself."

Scully was as shock as Mulder had seen her.  This was one those rare 
moments where not only had science and logic failed her, it did nothing to
help point her in the right direction.  
 
"What about you, Mulder?  Did you find anything?"
 
"I had the same luck as you did," Mulder responded.  "The witnesses I 
question all claim they don't know what happened to the man.  He simply
blew apart and they  don't know what to make out of it.  I asked them if
they saw anything unusual and they said no."   

Concern crossed Scully's face.  "How are they taking it?"
 
Mulder grimaced.  The Vietnam veteran was so shell shocked he decided not
to talk to the man. The man probably spent years trying to overcome
flashbacks and nightmares from the war and this had to happen.  "They're
still in shock.  It was hard for them to speak.  One of them thought it
was a bomb and she thought she had died along with the man.  Sadly, I
think the shock that she survived it only shook her up more.  Another one 
thought it was Spontaneous Human Combustion."

"There hasn't been much explanation for Spontaneous Human Combustion," 
Scully admitted.  "Maybe this is about the same thing.  They haven't found
a reason for  the human body suddenly exploding into flames.  In this
case, they just haven't found a reason for the human body suddenly
exploding period."

It sounded very probable to Mulder, but there was something about the
victims selected that made him uneasy.
 
/Were they selected?/
 
"Mulder?" Scully had turned around on her chair so that her knees were
touching his thighs, and looked up at him.  He had been in thought for a
while.   "Is everything all right?"

Mulder snapped himself of the trance he was in and looked down at her. 
"I'm fine," he said.  His
"I'm fine" was never as resolute was Scully's though.  

He let go of the chair and walked over to the TV in her room.  With a
flick of a hand, he turned it
on.  

Intrigued, Scully turned her attention to the TV.  She rested both hands
on the top of the chair. 
"What are you watching?" she asked.
 
"I want to see what the news has to say about this," Mulder said.  He
found the eleven o'clock news and sat on the bed, facing it.  Scully
watched him.  "You know, Scully, if this is really Spontaneous Human
Explosion, it's going to send quite a scare in the  public."

"Spontaneous Human Combustion is rare, though," Scully pointed out.  And 
then realized what Mulder was getting at.  "Oh my God," she said.  

He looked at her.  
 
Scully tightened her grip on the chair.  "Eleven people died of it in less
than one week.   Jesus, Mulder, if this continues, then we practically
have an epidemic in our  hands."  

Mulder opened his mouth to reply when something on the TV screen caught
his attention.  He turned his head abruptly and leaned forward a bit, his
eyes glued to the monitor.  Scully quickly got up and walked over to the
bed.  She looked at the TV.   The words, "spontaneous explosion" flashed
across left shoulder of the anchorman.  "Already," the man said, "there
has been thirteen reported case of this bizarre phenonmenon."

"Thirteen?" Scully repeated.
 
"Six cases have happened in Canada," the anchor man continued.  "Two in
Mexico, and five right here in the States."   

"Mexico," Mulder muttered.  "I'm sure there's other places in the world we
don't know about."

"And we have another case in Hong Kong.  A beggar exploded only an hour 
ago this evening.  We warn you that the pictures you will see are
disturbing and not recommended for young children."  

Hardened from years of dealing with grisly detective work and forensic
details, neither of the agents winced visibly when they saw the remains of
the beggar.  He had exploded on the corner of a busy intersection.  It was
also a bus stop.  Bus riders were going to have a devil of time trying to
see what time the bus came through the smear of the blood.  
 
"Witnesses say the man often begs for money and scraps of the food at  the
same place every day.  Today, however, a man stopped the beggar, stole his
money, stabbed him in the chest when the beggar tried to protest.  The
Hong Kong police have him in custody.  The beggar, however, exploded in
the same manner the homeless had exploded in North America.  The witnesses are
shocked."
 
Mulder reached for the remote and turned off the TV.  He looked at Scully.
 

"Hong Kong," she was mumbling.  "It's spreading overseas.  Mulder, this is
far worse than an epidemic.  It's virtually a plague."     

"Like I said," her partner said dryly.  "God's holy reign of righteousness
and terror has come three years earlier than planned."

- - - - -
End of Part 2
Continued in Part 3


Intro and Disclaimers in Part 1
- - - - - - 
An Orwellian Death Part 3

The killer had gone to a friend's house once.  Her friend was Caucasian, 
and they had very different tables from the Chinese.  Looking at her 
family push their chopstick ungracefully into the peas and shrimps and 
spring rolls, the killer wondered what her friend would have thought 
sitting at this table.  No one ever asked, "May you please pass the 
butter?"  When you're Chinese, you simply reach over table and grab the 
plate.  
 
"You haven't touched your food," her mother complained.
 
"I'm not hungry."  
 
"She's going to see the doctor tomorrow," her father said, as if blaming 
her lack of hunger on her seizure.   
 
"I hope it's not epilepsy."  Her mother feared epilepsy a great deal.  But for
that matter, her mother freaked out if the killer ever came down with so
much as a common cold

"I'm sure the CAT Scan will show that it's nothing," the killer said.  
She said CAT Scan in English so her younger sister ended up having to 
explain what it was to their parents.  The sister was creative, and went
as far 
as saying they stuck needles in her brains.  Her mother demanded to know 
if the doctors here were crazy.

"You should eat your food," her father insisted.
 
"I'm not hungry," the killer repeated.

"She should be sent to a concentration camp," said her older sister.  
"That'll teach her."  Her older sister was the only child of the family 
to survive the killing fields.  She was married now and expecting her 
first child.  "She'll starve there so much that she'll wish she had all 
the food that's lying on the table right now."
 
The killer cringed visibly.  Any talk about Cambodia made her flinch. 
with guilt.  She didn't suffer through it.  Everyone else did.  And now 
there were seven siblings that would never watch a thunderstorm from the 
porch, experience the cosiness that came with burrowing under six 
blankets on a cold winter morning, decorate the Christmas tree with 
Crystal Gale singing "White Christmas" in the back, hear their mother 
say she loved them one more time.  They would never experience the 
luxuries she had now, and she would never know the suffering they 
endured before they died.
 
"They have no idea what it's really like to know sorrow," her mother 
agreed.  When she said "They," she meant the killer and her younger 
sister who were born after they arrived to Canada.  Her younger sister 
never suffered the guilt though.  She was completely Canadian, and had 
inherited the inability to be guilty as while she was at it.  
 
The killer thought about what her mother just said and then remembered 
what her name was.  Ironic, she thought.  

"You remember how skinny we use to get," her mother said to her older 
sister.  "How our stomach would bloat out and her limbs were like 
sticks.  And remember when you brother stole potatoes off a neighbouring 
garden?  I didn't expect for him to be beaten so severely.  I don't know 
if the beating killed him, or the hunger did.  He was even younger than 
she" her mother pointed to the killer, "was."  
 
The tears were a hot surprise to the killer.  She wanted her family to 
stop talking.  For her, it was a cruel kind of mental torture.  But 
another part of her wanted them to continue.  She wanted to feel the 
guilt and worthlessness that came with each time her family told about 
the horrors of the killing fields.  She wanted to be punished for not 
living through it.  
 
"Here, eat your dinner," ordered her father.  He used his chopsticks, 
ones he had inserted in his mouth and licked off of, to put a tofu on 
her bowl of rice.  The fact that he used his own chopsticks probably 
would have grossed out most of the killer's peers, but her family didn't 
seem to care that much about table manners.  After all, back in 
Cambodia, they ate dirt and grass to stay alive.
 
Out of guilt, the killer slowly lifted the tofu to her mouth.  She held 
her breath as she gulped it down, resisting the urge to throw up when 
she felt it slither down her throat.  God.
 
She hated tofu.

- - - - - - - - 
 
The plane left for Washington at seven thirty in the morning.  Scully 
woke up at six forty five and started to panic when Mulder entered into 
her room with breakfast.
 
"I hope you don't mind cold cereal," he said, putting a pitcher of milk 
on the nightstand.  He sat down on the bed beside her, a bowl of 
cornflakes in his hand.  Mulder had already showered, shaved, and had on 
his trousers and work shirt.  No tie, though, and the top buttons of his 
shirt were undone.  
 
"I hope you're not this stingy at dinner with your date," Scully mumbled. 
But she smiled briefly at him to show her gratitude and 
propped herself  up on one elbow.  She looked at the bowl in his hands.  
"Mulder, I haven't even showered yet."  
 
"It doesn't matter," he said.  "I called the airport and changed the 
reservations.  Our plane leaves at noon."
 
She sat up, surprised.  "Did something come up?"
 
He chuckled.  "No, not yet.  I came in here an hour ago to tell you to 
get ready but you were sleeping so soundly that I felt it would be a 
shame to wake you.  I simply called the airport and they agreed to 
change the reservations.  Cost a small fee to do so but the bureau is 
paying for it."
 
Scully gave a small nod.  She looked at him, wondering why he was so 
close to being ready to leave after their flight was postponed.  "Why 
don't you get some rest too?  You only got as much sleep as I did."  

"I couldn't sleep last night," Mulder said.  
 
"Were you thinking about the case?"
 
He nodded.  "It's weird," he started.  He reached over to the put the 
bowl on the nightstand, his arm brushing by Scully's in the process.  " I 
think it selects its victims, like that oil substance did. But this new 
phenomenon is different somehow.  It doesn't share the same intelligence."

Scully listened intently.  Mulder knew he had her full attention when 
she shifted her position on the bed so she was facing him and crossed 
her legs under the covers.  
 
"I know how it sounds," Mulder added ruefully.

His partner shook her head.  There was a kind of hesitation in her 
voice.  "It doesn't sound as crazy as you think it does."  
 
Mulder stared at her.  
 
She sighed.   "In medical school, I learned diseases and viruses have no 
bias.  Anyone can develop a lung infection, contract AIDS, become the 
victim of cancer.  How much money or power you have doesn't provide 100 
percent assurance against the ailment.  But this . . . "  

"It only seems to affect those living in poverty," Mulder said lightly.  
 
She nodded. "Have there been any other cases so far?"
 
"I haven't checked the news."
 
"America AM should be on soon.  We'll find out then."  She uncrossed her 
legs, the covers rustling as she did so.  Mulder took it as an 
indication that she wanted to get out of bed.  He stood up.  "I'm going 
to take a shower first.  I'll be done in fifteen minutes."
 
"Mind if I use your television?"
 
"Go right ahead."  She retrieved a robe and her undergarments from her 
suitcase on the floor.  "There's a miniature fridge to your left.  You 
can put the milk there."  She disappeared into the washroom.  
 
Mulder found the remote control on the nightstand beside the cereal and 
turned on the TV.  He could hear water running from the washroom.  
America AM was on and he watched it half consciously as he waited for 
Scully to finish with her shower.   At the current moment, America AM 
was discussing the anxieties that came with shopping for Christmas 
presents.  They were interviewing people in malls across the country.
 
Bored, Mulder flipped the channel and saw reruns of Care Bears, Sailor 
Moon, and several step aerobic programs.  He went back to America AM.  
 
He dropped the remote when he returned.  
 
Scully came out of the bathroom later, dressed in a robe, her red hair 
damp against the terry cloth.  She saw Mulder sitting in front of the 
TV, his face fixed on the screen, his expression grave and disbelieving 
at the same time.  
 
Scully didn't walk up to him; didn't ask him what was wrong.  She knew 
it had something to do with the news.  She looked at the TV and felt her 
stomach drop to her knees.
 
"Oh my God," she said slowly.  
 
- - - - - - - - - - -
 
The news about the Refugee camp in Rwanda was the talk of the day at 
GreenHill Middle School.  The students were clearly shaken up by the 
news.  
 
"A whole camp," a boy was saying.  "All fifty-eight people exploded.   
Just like those homeless here in Ontario blew up."
 
"The reverend at our church said it was the beginning of the apocalypse 
and that Jesus Christ was coming soon," a girl announced.  "He said God 
was laying out his punishment for the evil of our world and we should be 
prepared for when he comes again."  
 
This comment caused the student who sat at the next table to snicker.  
There was little mirth in her laugh though.  She had stayed up all night 
drawing fifty eight pictures of red, yellow, and orange splashes.
 
The other students gave her a wary look, and then continued their 
conversation.  

A third girl was shuddering.  "What if we're next?" she asked.  She 
opened her silver pencil case and took a mechanical pencil and without 
realizing what she was doing, inserted it into a plastic pencil 
sharpener.   "This thing is far deadlier than Spontaneous Human 
Combustion.  More people are dying from it and it spreading so fast.  
It's everywhere.  It's here in Ottawa.  Maybe we're next and we're going 
to die soon."

There was a moment of panic, of fear for her two companions before the 
girl at the next table stopped sniggering and turned around.  There was 
a bitterness to her voice when she said. "Don't worry, you're not going 
to die from it."

They stared at her.  She had always been the strange girl in the school.  
 
"It can't affect you," she added.  "You're safe from this kind of 
death."  
 
"How do you know?" the third girl demanded.  "How can you fucking tell?"
 
The killer favoured them with a grim smile.  "Trust me," she said, 
annoyed, "you have nothing to worry about."  

- - - - - - -
 
"You called us, sir?" 
 
Skinner looked at the two agents from his desk as they began to sit 
down.  "Yes, I did."  He folded his hands together in front of him on 
the desk.  "I got a call from the adminitrator's office this morning"
 
By reflex, Mulder opened his mouth to protest.
 
"Don't say anything, Agent Mulder," his assistant director ordered, 
"we're not reprimanding you here.  The call I received this morning was 
a request to remove you and Agent Scully of the recent case you're 
working on."
 
"Sir, we were following protocol" Mulder began.
 
"Agent Mulder, I already told you you're not here to be reprimanded," 
Skinner said sharply.  
 
"Then why are they pulling us off the case?" the agent persisted.
 
Skinner gave something of a sigh.  "After what happened in that refugee 
camp in Rwanda, the top officials of the United Nation declared it was a 
global emergency.  They want the case handed over the scientists and 
investigators of the UN."
 
"They're not going to find anything," Mulder protested.
 
Skinner shot him a weary look.  
 
"I know this sounds crazy sir, but I believe this plague has a mind of 
its own."
 
"Agent Mulder-"
 
"I'm afraid he's right, sir."  It was Scully who spoke, which surprised 
both men.  She looked at Mulder quickly, searching for reassurance.  He 
met her gaze, relief and gratitude showing in his eyes, and nodded his 
head.  That was all she needed to lift her head and look at her 
supervisor.  Her face was pale and calm, respectful, but resolute.  "As 
you may have noticed, sir, whatever this plague is, it only happens to 
those living in one sort of impoverishment or another."  
 
"You're saying this plague chooses its victims."  Skinner failed to 
sound as disbelieving and condescending as he had desired.  
 
Mulder could see that Skinner didn't think he was completely full of 
bullshit.  That, and the fact that Scully backed him up, gave him a 
tremendous sense of well being.  Maybe not everyone thought it he was 
spooky.  He nodded.  "Yes, sir, I am.  Luckily for us, we seem to have a 
perfect immunity from it."  
 
Skinner turned his face away from them.  
 
Scully cleared her throat.  "With all due respect, sir," she started, 
hoping that in being extraordinarily respectful and polite, she would 
get what she was asking for,  "I was wondering if you could contact 
those who are in charge of the investigation at the UN and make a 
request to include us in the investigation."
 
"Agent Scully, I can guarantee you right now that they're not going to
agree to that."
 
Scully knew he was right.  She looked away, feeling slightly embarrassed. 
She was surprised when she felt a hand on her arm.  She turned to see
Mulder looking at her with an expression that said, "it's alright, Scully.
 We can't get everything want and that's okay with me."  

It was strange how Scully didn't even have to nod her head or smile at him
to convey a response.  She simply looked at him, and that was all it took
for Mulder to know what she wanted to say to him.

/Then it's fine with me too./  

She looked back at her supervisor.  "I understand sir," she said
sincerely.  There a moment of silence before she added, "may I be
dismissed?"  

Skinner nodded.  

Scully stood up walked out of the room briskly.   Mulder gave Skinner a
brief nod and followed her out of the door.  

- - - - - - - - 

End of Part 3
Continued in Part 4
 

Intro and Disclaimer in Part 1
- - - - - - - -

An Orwellian Death (4b/12)

The killer watched the Christmas lights blink on and off through her 
bedroom window.  Her neighbour was one of those festive freaks that went 
insane with decoration whenever the holidays arrived.  They had 
tombstones in the front yard when it was Halloween, scarecrows dressed 
up as pilgrims when it was Thanksgiving, and cute little wooden bunny 
rabbits on the lawn when it was Easter.  Currently, the house was 
flooded with Christmas light so it looked like a beacon for spaceships.
 
The killer wondered how they could be so joyous this Christmas.  It was 
a gloomy Christmas for many people, especially with the Orwellian Death 
still hanging around.  The authorities were now arresting any homeless
hanging 
around the mall.  There was a fear that they might explode and scare the 
people shopping for Christmas presents around them.  The volunteers who 
worked at the food banks and emergency shelters had long, weary faces.  
The people involved in cleaning up the mess that Orwellian Death left 
behind went home with haunted faces.  
 
Yeah, it was a /very/ depressing Christmas.  
 
/Happy Birthday, Jesus Christ.   Did you like the present I sent you?/
 
The killer picked up the bottle of pills beside her.  There were several 
bottles on her table.  She wasn't sure which one of them was lethal but 
she was sure that if she overdosed on all of them, her death certificate 
would be filled out by tomorrow morning.  
 
She looked at the bottle carefully, tilting it so she could hear the 
crisp noise the pills made when they piled on one another.  She 
swallowed hard, knowing that she had to do this.  It was the only way to 
stop any more innocent people from dying.  
 
The strange thing was, ever since the seizure, she thought life was an 
evil, awful thing, full of pain and blood and hardship.  Now that she 
was so close to taking her own life, she realized that she loved life.  
It was painful and horrible, but there was something beautiful in how 
people persisted through another day.  
 
And she took that beauty away from so many people.  

Her guilt was enormous, crushing her from the outside in, staining her 
from the inside out.  She wondered how Hitler and Pol Pot could commit 
the atrocities they did without apparently feeling any guilt.  She was 
no better than them.  No better than Pol Pot.  No better than the man 
who was responsible for the death of seven of her older brothers and 
sisters.
 
She carefully undid the cap of the bottle and pour the pills into her 
hands. A spasm tore through her body and she dropped both the bottle and 
the pills.  They scattered on the floor, hitting the ground at different 
times and bouncing up and down for a moment before rolling away.  
 
/Don't think you're getting off that easily, darling./
 
Oh God.  She had forgotten about Him.  Her hands shook so violent that 
she was no longer able to hold the bottle anymore.  It fell on the 
floor, pushing a few of the pills aside.
 
She should have never made that deal with Him.  She could hear Him 
laughing in her ears, His hot breath tickling against her ear lobes.  He 
seemed to be everywhere.  She turned around and saw nothing.  But she 
knew He was there.  She set her teeth.

/This isn't for me.  Yes, I hate those images and I hate killing those 
people and I hate that damn fucking curse you gave me, but this isn't to 
end my pain.   I'm not killing any more people./
 
/I don't care less if you don't kill another person.  But you're not 
going to die that easily.  That painlessly.  And you're not going to die 
immediately, either.  No, you'll going to have to live with what you did 
to those innocent people - /
 
/Stop it!/

/They're going to haunt you for some time, you know.  But I'm not going 
to torture you for too long.  You're going to die soon enough.  It won't 
be at your hands though.  It's going to be a long, agonizing death.  I
know 
what you hate the most./                                         


/Stop it, I said!  Get the hell out of my mind!/
 
/But wasn't this how this happened in the first place?  I got into your 
mind.  And saw all those faceless people in it.  Dying.  Being raped.  
Starving.  You wanted them out of your mind.  You asked me to kill them 
 - /
 
/No!/
 
/Yes, you did and you know that.  You wanted every poor, imprisoned, 
tortured, hungry, diseased people in the world to be gathered to one 
place on this world - /
 
/No!  God, stop this!!!/
 
/And you wanted to bomb them all to tiny little pieces./
 
She was crying now, crying so hard that her chest hurt and her eyes 
itched.  She placed her hands over her face and felt the tears come 
streaming out of her body.  She didn't know where tears came from, but 
these tears felt like they were being ripped out of that black, pathetic 
heart of hers.
 
/I didn't want this!  I wanted them gone at all once!  They weren't uppose
to keep coming to visit my mind!  I allowed you to kill them so that I 
wouldn't have to see their faceless, tormented little images again!/

He laughed.  It was a horrible little laugh, so full of irony and 
delight and love of seeing others in pain.
 
/Didn't you know, darling?  I'm the father of lies./
 
He was gone then and the killer sat by her desk, the back of her hands 
pressed against her mouth, crying.  Her sobs were pitiful, loud, causing 
her body to convulse in small spasm and shudders.  
 
Her younger sister found her like, guilt and sorrow incarnate.  Her 
mother had named her inappropriately.  The sister walked up to her and 
put her arms around her.  "Don't cry," she begged desperately.  
 
The killer hugged her back, crying harder.
 
Her sister's eyes began to water.  "Stop crying."  She bit her lips and 
stroked her older sister's hair.  "I hate seeing you like this," she 
said, her voice cracking.  She suddenly saw the bottles.  "Oh God."  Her 
tears started to fall then, trickling down her cheeks and falling onto 
the soft hair of the killer beneath her.  She pulled away.  "Stupid!" 
she cried.  "Don't ever try to kill yourself again!  Don't you ever try 
to leave me here!"
 
The killer looked at her sister, her face tear stained.  She was crying 
so hard it was difficult for her to breath.  
 
Her younger sister was sobbing with her, but she also very angry.  And 
very frightened.  "I'll hate you forever if you do!"  
 
There was few moments where neither one said anything.  The only noises
that could be heard the heavy breathing, the choking, and the hiccuping 
that came with the two girls crying.
 
Finally, the killer stood up and one sweep of her arms, dumped all the 
bottles off the table. 
 
 /He was right.  I am not going to die by my own hands.  And He sent the 
most important person in my life to insure that./

Her sister walked up to her.  She was a full year younger, and a whole 
inch taller.  She was trembling, her shoulders heaving up and down, but 
her face was defiant.  "Promise me you'll never do that again," she said 
through her tears.  
 
The killer looked down at her feet.  
 
Her sister slapped her.  "Promise me!"  
 
"I promise."

Her sister tried to smile, but the tears on her now soft red face only 
made her look like she was wincing in pain.  She took the killer's arm 
and waited until she was able to breathe properly before she suggested, 
"Let's watch some videos I borrowed.  We haven't anything together 
recently."  She silently berated herself for that.  Ever since the 
killer had her seizure, her younger sister had been avoiding her.  And
now her older sister was suicidal.  God, she couldn't leave the kid out 
of her sight for a minute.  

The killer wiped her nose with her sleeve.  "What videos do you have?"
 
"Ranma ," her sister replied.  She wiped her face with the inside of 
her T- shirt and smiled again.  "It's really funny." She hugged the 
killer.  "It'll make you feel better."
 
The strange thing was, it really did.  The killer sat on the living room 
couch with her sister, sharing a blanket, and laughed throughout the 
show.  Her tears were dried by the time the first episode.  By the 
tenth, her face was no longer itchy and irritated, although the skin 
around her eyes and mouth was puffy and tender.  She didn't care.  All 
that mattered was that once during the next few hours did she see another 
faceless image.  
 
- - - - - - - -

A week before Christmas, Mulder went to see Scully.  Scully was in her 
room, packing her clothes.  As usual, she was going to visit her mother 
for Christmas.  Christmas music was playing softly in the background.  
 
"You might be right about the Orwellian Death ending soon, Scully," 
Mulder said from the doorway.  "In the last twenty six hours, there has 
been no reported cases of the death from anywhere in the world.  It 
stopped just in time for Christmas."
 
"I couldn't think of a better Christmas present," Scully said, still 
bent over her neatly laid out suitcase.  
 
Mulder walked up to her and saw that her eyes were moist.  "Christmas 
has been a hard time for you and your family, hasn't it?" he asked.  
 
She tucked a sweater in the suitcase.  "Last year was difficult," she 
admitted.  "Without Melissa and my father."
 
"I'm sorry," he said.  

"It'll get easier." She looked away and remained silent for a moment.  
The only noise that could be heard was someone singing "Have yourself a 
Merry Little Christmas".   Mulder felt a strange nostalgic emptiness when
he heard it.  "Christmas just hasn't been my favourite season lately."

"Was it ever?"
 
She looked at him and smiled softly.  "When I was a child, it was.  
Melissa used to wake up early and we'd catch Dad trying to be Santa 
coming down the chimney."  Her smile faded.  "What about you?  Are you 
doing anything this Christmas?"
 
"I was thinking of visiting my mother." 
 
"You should," Scully told him.  "She's probably very lonely."
 
Mulder didn't reply.  He listened to one of the phrases of the song:
 
"Through the years, we all will be together
If the fates allow"
 
Fate hadn't been too kind to Scully lately.  Mulder noticed some flowers 
on her dresser.  "Are those, are they for Melissa?" he asked quietly.
 
"I just wanted to stop by her grave before I headed off to Mom's house."  
Her voice was so soft and so low he could barely hear it.  
 
Mulder touched her hair and she looked at him.  "Would you want some 
company?" he offered.
 
She was touched.  It showed her eyes.  But she shook her head.  "No.  
This is something I want to do by myself."  

He understood.  He helped her pack and turned off the CD player before 
they got ready to leave. They left the building together, saying nothing 
on the elevator ride.  Outside, the air was cold.  They could see their 
breath in the air whenever they breathed.  Christmas lights twinkled 
from various houses and trees.  It felt like Christmas.  The Orwellian 
Death seemed a life time away.  
 
Scully stopped him at the door of her car, putting a hand on his forearm 
and holding lightly onto the sleeve of his coat.  "Merry Christmas 
Mulder," she said.  
 
"Take care of yourself," he replied seriously.  

She nodded, her face impassive, and got into the car.  Mulder headed 
towards his own vehicle, watching the lights flicker on and off, 
wondering if which shades of grey he saw was really red and which were 
really green.
 
- - - - - -

End of Part 4b

Continued in Part 5


Intro and disclaimer in part 1

 - - -

An Orwellian Death (4a/12)
 
Like the names, "AIDS", "Ebola", and "Spontaneous Human Combustion", few 
people knew the true origin of the name, "Orwellian Death."  Rumours had 
it that it was a Canadian student at the University of Carleton came up 
with the name when it was discovered that the plague only attacked those 
living in poverty. 
 
It was called "The Orwellian Death" because the rumoured student had read
an 
essay called "How the Poor Die" by George Orwell shortly before the 
connection was made.  
 
The killer liked the name.  It sounded a lot more mystical and romantic 
than "Ebola" and "Spontaneous Human Combustion."  She wondered how 
George Orwell felt about having such a violent, vicious death named 
after him.  
 
She had stopped at the university's library after school one day to look 
up, "How the Poor Die" by George Orwell.  She also borrowed "1984", 
written by the same author.
 
"You're interested in the Orwellian Death as well?" the student 
librarian asked her, surprised. The killer was twelve, but she looked 
about seven or eight, especially with the two long braids and the 
cardigan sweater that matched her pleaded skirt.  
 
"Isn't everybody?" the killer said in an offhand manner.  

"I think the whole globe is talking about it," the librarian said.  She 
ran the books through the computers and stamped them.  
 
The killer hid a smile.  
 
She hated the visions that came haunted her every hour of the day.  She 
hated feeling the people's pain and feeling that she was responsible 
because she wasn't experiencing it with them.  She hated killing them.  

She felt that if she had to write "Sorry" on the top corner of another 
red-orange-yellow artwork again, she was going to explode herself and 
blow up the whole world while she was at it.  
 
Strange enough, though, she felt a curious pride at the commotion the 
Orwellian Death had started.  Here she was, twelve years old, plain, dull,
modest, as ordinary as you can get, an unknown girl living in the (in her 
opinion) nondescript city of Ottawa.  And she had more than two hundred
murders to her name.  She started a plague that was talked about 
everywhere, was studied in universities all over the world, was the
current top priority of the United Nations.

All at the expense of the lives of innocent people.  
 
/I'm not being mean to them!  I'm doing them a favour!  The people in 
the Rwanda camps were dying of starvation! The prisoners in China were 
being tortured!  That child I just killed was being raped by that 
tourist!  I'm helping them!/

Still, she was committing murder.  And merciful murder or not, she knew 
she didn't have the right to feel proud about herself.  
 
She couldn't help herself though.  "Nothing like this has ever happened 
in history, has it?" 

"Not that we know of," the librarian replied.
 
"Do you know what caused it?" the killer asked.
 
"No one has a single clue," the librarian answered.  "It just started 
with that man right here in Ottawa and has been spreading since.  No one 
knows what's causing it and how to stop it."
 
/Don't feel so proud of yourself.  It's a sick thing you started./

"It's awful," the librarian added softly.  
 
The killer felt the pride fade away like melting snow on a warm March 
morning.  "Do you suppose," she asked thoughtfully, "that maybe dying is 
the best thing to happen to those people?  Their lives weren't that great 
to begin with."
 
"There has been a lot of talk about that," the librarian mused.  "But 
it's their life.  It's up to them to decide how horrible life is.  If 
they thought it was so bad, they would have committed suicide a long 
time ago.  No one else has the right to decide what constitute a good 
life and make the decision that those not living it should die."
 
Guilt flooded the killer in waves.  She felt so low, so despicable and 
unworthy.  The librarian was right.  The killer knew she was right a 
long time ago, but she only wanted those images out of her head.  Her 
mantra that she was helping those people was just an excuse to stop them 
from visiting her mind.  
 
/Selfish little bitch./
 
She looked around her, at the tall shelves of books and the carpeted 
floor.  There was so much books.  The place seem to have a mind of its 
own; it was full of knowledge.  "I like it here," the killer stated 
simply.  
 
"You like libraries in general?"
 
She nodded.  "They're quiet.  I hate noise but the world's so full of 
noise these days.  I like it here."

The librarian smiled at her and handed her the books.  The killer took 
them carefully and walked out of the library.  It was sunny but cold 
outside. The snow had started to fall a week ago and the air was 
bitterly frigid. The killer shudder, her fingers becoming numb almost 
immediately.  She loved Canada as a country, but she hated the cold with 
a passion.  To her, the worst way to die was to freeze to death.  
The killer shambled into the glasshouse of the bus stop and took out the 
book of essays.  With trembling fingers, she checked the table of 
content, found "How the Poor Die" and started to read it.  

- - - - - - - -
 
The latest death was a grim one.  
 
An European business man reported that the prostitute boy he had been 
fucking in Thailand exploded right in the middle of sex.  There was one 
guy who was never going to try paedophilia ever again.
 
It was also one bystander neither Scully or Mulder felt much sympathy 
for.  
 
"There really ought to be a law against child prostitution," Scully told 
Mulder as they read over the case in the newspaper.  Her voice was 
disgusted, disturbed.  
 
"There are laws, it just depends on what country you live in," Mulder
muttered.  
He leaned back on his chair and put a hand over his eyes.  
 
They were in their office, supposedly finishing up some paper work on 
the case they worked on before the Orwellian.  Mulder had the newspaper 
out on the table and read the article to Scully.
 
The Orwellian Death was spreading at an alarming rate, averaging a 
frightening sixteen point two deaths a day.  It was random, and other than 
knowing  that the ensuing victim was going to be a desolate one, it was
hard to tell who was next.  The only protection the United Nations was 
able to provide for the potential victims were food and water and shelter, 
hoping that by giving the people a good life, they would elude the 
plague.  Food banks were opening their doors wide, and donations of 
clothes, food, and emergency materials were being given away as fast as 
the UN workers and other volunteers could deliver them. 
 
But no matter how hard or how fast they worked, they always missed 
someone.  This was plainly obvious by the headlines that glared across 
the front cover of the newspaper.  

"People who abuse children sexually ought to be castrated," Scully 
said.  
 
"But those kids in Thailand help the economy," Mulder retorted, and the 
sarcasm and the disgust was plain in his voice.  "They good for 
tourism."
 
"Fuck them," Scully said. "No child should be treated in that fashion."  
She sighed and set her coffee on the desk.  "I can't believe this is 
happening.  Nothing like this has ever happened before in history as far 
as we know."  
 
His partner looked at her thoughtfully.  "Remember what you said about 
this being the act of God?" he asked.
 
"I derived from the statement you made about God having something 
against ne-er-do-wells," Scully said dryly.  "Why, do you think this is 
an act of God?"
 
"You're the one who's Catholic," Mulder said.

"I was brought up Catholic, Mulder.  I'm not necessarily Catholic."

"Do you believe in God?"

She thought about Kevin Kryder.  "I believe it's possible He exists."  
 
"Do you think this could be the hand of God?"
 
She shook her head.  "It's probably the most plausible explanation for 
what's happening, but no, I don't think it's the hand of God.  God is 
supposed to be good, and what good can come out this?  If you want my 
opinion, I think it's more likely the hand of the devil."
 
Scully had no idea how close she was to the truth.

Mulder raised an eyebrow.  "I never thought about that," he said slowly.  
 
"I wasn't being serious."
 
"I am."  
 
"And what does the devil have against poor people?"
 
"Maybe he doesn't have anything against them."  His face suddenly grew 
pensive.  "Maybe he thinks he's doing them a favour."
 
"We're talking about the devil here, Mulder."
 
"No," Mulder said, deep in thought.  "Not the devil.   The plague 
itself."
 
Scully looked him.  "Mulder, you're profiling a /plague/," she said.  

He grinned, which caused Scully to give a small smile at the absurdity of 
the idea.  

Mulder continued, "Think about it though, Scully.  What if the plague 
thinks it is doing a favour for these people.  Let's face it, most of 
the people who died were going to die soon anyway from starvation, 
disease, beatings, the cold, whatever.  What if the plague was killing 
them so they would have a quicker, more painless death?"
 
Scully lost her smile.  "Are you saying that the plague has a 
conscience?"
 
 "I not saying anything definite."

"Mulder, you do understand that plagues can't have consciences."

"If the plague has a bias against poor people, why can't it have its own
conscience?"  

"Even if it did have a conscience," Scully started, "killing people 
because they're poor or abused or desolate is wrong.  That's saying that 
human beings cannot overcome their difficulties and deal with it so they 
should be killed off.  They're worth nothing then.  It's cruel and 
inhumane and above all, wrong."

It was a paradox in its self.  Mulder, the psychiatrist, was the one who 
was awed by the paranoia and the science of the case they worked on.  
Scully, the scientist, was the moralistic one.  
 
"Do you think it will stop soon?"  It was Mulder who asked the question.  
He was looking down at his hands folded at the table.
 
Scully was looking at them, admiring them without knowing.  He had 
beautiful hands.  
 
To his surprised, Scully nodded.  "I do.  Plagues, such as these ones, 
don't last long.  It'll be gone in a year at the most.  After all, when 
it finish killing all the people living in poverty, what will it have 
left to do?"
 
Mulder looked at her.  "I guess that how we get rid of it then," he 
said.  "When it runs out of  unfortunate people to kill, it'll starve 
itself and then disappear."  
 
Scully looked away, but Mulder could see the disgust and exasperation in 
her eyes.  She swallowed, hard, and continued to stare straight ahead.  
Mulder look down at his hands again.
 
It was going to be one very gloomy Christmas.
 
- - - - -
End of part 4a


Intro and Disclaimer in Part 1

- - - - - - -

An Orwellian Death (5/12)

Three Years Later

The former killer was stopped by the bus driver when she got onto the
bus with her best friend Ida Fong one cold Fall morning. They were on
their way to school. The bus driver didn't nod his head when the girl 
showed him her buspass. "Your buspass is overdue," he said.

The killer stared at him, surprised.

/He has to be kidding. It can't be October already. It was September 
30th yesterday.... wait. Thirty days has September - Christ! It's the
first 
one in the goddamn poem!/ 

She pulled out her money and with a weary sigh dumped it into the coin
dispensor.  She walked over to Ida.  "There goes my lunch money," she
muttered.  She slumped into the seat beside her friend and pulled her
knapsack off her back and onto her lap.  

"Why don't you eat the lunch your father made you?" Ida asked.

"God, are you warped or something?  Like I'll eat cold English muffin with
cheese melted on it.  Disgusting.  Besides, I have to feed that homeless
at the intersection something."

"Sure.  You give him the food you don't want so you can go and buy poutine
for yourself.  That's charity."  

"Better than what most people are doing," the girl retorted.  She
shuddered.  It was freezing and the blue windbreaker she was wearing
didn't do much to keep the heat in.  Maybe she should get the winter coat
out.  "Jesus, why is it so cold now?  It's barely fall.  We'll be wearing
snowpants before it's Rememberance Day."  

"It's only going to get worse," Ida told her dryly.  "Mr. Erikson's heater
broke down last night during the Student Council meeting."

"Oh no."

"English Writing is going to be one cold class."

"I'm skipping it then."

"I think you're overreacting," Ida told her.   She knew her friend hated
the cold with a passion, but still, skipping class because the heater was
broken was going a little extreme.

The girl didn't answer for a moment.  She played with the zipper of her
knapsack.  Ida looked at the bag.  Unlike every other student, the girl
didn't put her text books and binders in the knapsack.  She did her
homework and studying after school in the library and left her books in
her locker.  No one knew what was inside the knapsack.  Ida wondered a lot
of course, and she hounded her friend day and night about the content, but
she knew how to respect other people's privacy.  

The girl looked away.  "Well, there's also another reason," the girl
added.  Ida raised her eyebrow.  The girl sighed, pulled a pen out of the
front pocket of her bag and wrote on her expired buspass.  She passed it
to Ida, her expression pained and wary.  

She had written: Don't say it out loud. I had an erotic dream last 
night about Mr. Erikson.

Ida hooted. "You didn't!" she said between fits of laughter.

"Keep your voice down!" the girl hissed. 

"Tell me about it!"

"Do you mind?"

"We'll talk about it later." Ida looked at the girl, who was suddenly 
shaking her head and smiling. She wasn't one to get mad easily, 
although Ida suspected she was more complicated than the quiet goody two 
shoes everyone else thought she was. 

The girl turned to Ida. "I'll get the English notes from you tonight
then."

Ida snorted. "In your dreams."

"With friends like you, I don't need any enemies." 

Ida laughed. 

The girl looked at her friend and smiled. She felt a remarkable sense 
of love and belonging at that moment. Strangely, she also felt empty 
and sad at the same time. There was a touch of melancholy to her 
smile. She looked down at her hands, which always looked like they
had been dipped in blood. At least, they looked like that to her. Ida
and her sister couldn't see it, but the girl knew her hands would always
be tainted with the blood of those she killed three years earlier.

"What's wrong?" Ida sounded concerned. 

The girl looked up at her friend, slightly out of it. "Nothing," she 
said quickly, hiding her soiled hands behind her back, as if she was 
afraid that Ida would see them and know her darkest secret. She looked 
at the bus driver who had stopped another person for having a September 
bus pass and suddenly smiled. "No. Nothing's wrong at all."

- - - - - - - - -

Scully wondered when explaining an inpending case became painful for
Mulder.  He avoided giving her the casefile until the last minute, as he
did in this case.  He simply handed her the folder, saying nothing as she
opened it.  

She looked at him, surprised. "The Orwellian Death is back?"

"That's what they're saying in Oregon," Mulder told her. "But I
 have my doubts."

Scully scanned the report. "So do I."

"They asked us to fly down there. We're going tomorrow morning." 

Anger flared in Scully's eyes for moment, but died so quickly that
Mulder didn't see it. She looked away, wondering why she felt so
angry at Mulder for making plans without telling her. He had done 
that before and she didn't mind it. It wasn't like she had a life outside
of work that was being put off.

"I see," was all she said.

Mulder sensed the tension in her voice. Then again, their relationship 
had been tense in the last year or so. He felt his guard go up. "Our 
flights leaves at nine thirty."

She looked at him. "Why don't you tell me about the case?" she asked, 
her tone of voice arched and testing. 

/You're the one with an MD. Aren't you supposed to be able to read and 
analyse files?/

He was surprised at how close he was to saying that. He had to bite his
tongue before lauching into the details. "One man was found bombed to
death in Oregon.  He was an immigrant fresh off the boat from Singapore
who was sponsored over by his family.  He had been involved in some gang
trafficking and was arrested four years ago.  And we all know that
Singapore's prisons are more grim than the prisons here.  Anyways, no one
know what caused the explosion.  The hospital has his body in the morgue
and they want us to check on it."

"It's not Orwellian," Scully said, reading the man's files.  "He may have
been living in destitution back in Singapore but he wasn't as fresh of the
boat and you made him seem.  He's been living here in America for over
three months with his family.  They're a well to do family and he was
getting an education.  Doesn't sound like the type of horrible death the
Orwellian wanted to spare someone from."  

"I told them that but, they want us to check and make sure it isn't
Orwellian."  

"And Kersh is allowing us to investigate this? It's a complete waste 
of two plane tickets."

"It's his call, Scully," Mulder told her. "His calls the shots and we
simply comply." 

"So you're actually going to follow his orders," she said. 

The exasperation in his tone surprised her. "Isn't that what you were
trying to get me to do since day one, Scully?"

Her expression harden. "Don't treat me like the enemy, Mulder." 

He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. Looked down at his
hands that was playing with the folder. No, she wasn't the enemy.  She was
the only person insane enough to stick by him. Stupid might have been the
word. God only knows why she remained with him as long as she had. Since
Samantha's death, Mulder had been, as Spender once said to Fowley,
emotionally unstable. 

"You can't be allies without trust, Scully," Mulder told her. "And you
certainly haven't been putting your trust in me lately." 

Scully knew he was talking about her not backing him up in their session
with Kersh. For that matter, Scully had been contradicting everything he
said whenever they were interviewed. As far as Mulder was concerned, she
was trying to make him look paranoid and unreasonable and discrediable.
She wondered why Mulder was still putting up with her.

"I can't help it if what you say is going against science," she said.

"And what does Science have to say about the Orwellian Deaths?" 

She felt trapped. To that day, no one knew what caused the Orwellian
Death. Had it not been so selective, they could have just passed it off as
"Spontaneous Human Explosion".  She opted to using her resort phrase, "I'm
sure there is a reasonable explanation for it" but then realized that
recently, whenever she said that, she had little scientific proof to back
it up. It was almost as if she was saying to spite Mulder.  She finally
gave a sigh of resignation. 

"I'll see you tomorrow morning then," she said.  Mulder hated himself for
the smugness he was feeling. He didn't say anything as Scully stood up and
walked out of the room.  She avoided spending time in their new cubicles,
which was the opposite of what Mulder was doing.  It was strange that he
was living there now.  He never did get used to it.  It wasn't the same
without the "I Want to Believe" poster.

- - - - - 

The former killer didn't want to go see her dying grandmother. She
argued in vain about it with her parents.

"But I haven't even met her before!" she whined.

"More reason for you to see her," her mother said firmly. "She's dying and
you're her granddaughter. She should see you once in her life." 

"But she's probably so close to death that she won't know I'm there," the
killer protested. 

"Hey, watch what you say or I'll beat the living shit out of you," her
father snarled. But the girl knew he was feeling guilty. She felt people's
guilt where ever she went. It felt like eletric vibes pulsing through her
body, and if the person was holding an astonishing amount of remorse, she
got migraines. Once, she passed someone who accidently ran his car over a
dog on the street and she blacked out there on the bus. She knew what he
had done because she saw it. The images of faceless disimpovished
disappeared, and they were replaced with those of guilt. 

But it wasn't as bad. It wasn't her guilt, and she only suffered
physically, not mentally from it. She didn't mind it as much.  She looked
at her father. He was feeling remorseful for not seeing his mother earlier
when she had written to him and asked him to visither.

Now she probably wouldn't recognize him when he came to her hospital bed. 

"Okay, fine, I'll go," the girl said. "Just let me pack some stuff up first."

Her mother sighed wearily. "Go get your anime tapes," she said in
exasperation. Her parents disapproved of her anime obsession. If only they
knew how that obsession stopped one of the deadliest plagues in the
history of the world.

The girl ran up the stairs and was pleased to find out her younger sister
had already packed all the videos. "Did you pack Vision of Escaflowne?"

"We're going to see our grandmother kick the pail. I figured we needed
something more comical. I packed Dragon Half and Dirty Pair Flash." They
grinned at each other. They loved saying "Dirty Pair Flash" because it
sounded so perverted and pornographic. The truth was it was a relatively
innocent anime. They went down the stairs together.

"Hurry up, your grandmother is waiting for you," her father snapped.

"Not half as eagerly as God is waiting for her," the former killer said
coolly. Her father smacked her on the head as hard as he could.

- - - - - - 

After Scully left the room, Mulder reached into his desk and pulled out a
framed picture of Samantha. She was swinging from the jungle gyms, her
long brown hair tied in pigtails. She was smiling at the camera, proud
that she had reached the top. She looked so innocent and happy and
carefree. 

His little sister.  He wished she had never been born. 

If Samantha had never existed, they wouldn't have taken her. He wouldn't
have to feel that it wrong to be happy. That he only deserved bad things
to happen to him to make up for Samantha's suffering. 

He wouldn't feel so goddamn worthless all the time. 

He was ashamed of those feelings, but he couldn't help it. She had
disapeared too long ago for him to think of her as someone he loved. 

He had lost so much looking for her and she turned up dead. The thought
made him cringe with pentience.  It wasn't Samantha's fault any more than
it was his fault. He had no right to blame her. 

He ran a finger lightly over her face and then stared at the picture for a
long time, silently telling her how sorry he was. Finally, he put it back
in his drawer, underneath old files and unfinished reports.

He had long since thrown out the videos and magazines from that drawer. 

End of Chapter Five 
Continued in Chapter Six


Intro and Disclaimer in Part 1

- - - - - - - 

An Orwellian Death (6/12)

Chapter Six
 
As Mulder an Scully had suspected, the bomb victims in Oregon were not 
the victims of the Orwellian Death.  The man had died as a result of 
having a compressed air pump inserted up his rectum.  Scully had 
determined that when she did the autopsy.  
 
"But the forensic team didn't find a compressed air pump in his house," 
Dr. Richter replied.     She was an ER doctor, a blond woman in her 
early thirties and so attractive that Scully felt that the two plane 
tickets weren't wasted after all.  The hospital left the body in her 
care until the FBI arrived.  The actual forensic pathologist was having 
his appendix removed.  
 
"The man was used to be involved in a series of gang trafficking," 
Mulder said from one end of the table.  "I got a hold of the police 
report and apparently he ratted out on the members in the gang.  I'm 
going to assume that probably this gang from Singapore came to visit him 
in his home here in Oregon when his family was out, sedated him, and 
then inserted the compressed air hope into his rectum and had him 
exploded to make it look like an Orwellian."  

"The toxicology report did show traces of rohipnal in his blood," Dr. 
Richter admitted.  
 
Scully walked over to the sink or peel her gloves off. 

Mulder suggested they call the police to investigate all the hotels and 
transportation stations in the area too see if anybody checked in a 
couple of days before the death and then left the city a couple days 
afterwards.  He suspected that since they man had been dead for almost 
three days, the culprits had already left the country.

Dr. Richter thanked them for their time and shook their hands, 
apologizing for dragging them all the way here.  "Orwellian has never 
struck here in Oregon and we weren't sure if this was it."
 
"I understand," Scully told her.  "It was wise of you to have it 
verified before you went public with it."
 
"I thought you felt the trip was a waste of two plane tickets," Mulder 
muttered his under breath, but not soft enough that Scully couldn't hear 
him.  
 
Scully didn't look at him, but she pulled her lips tightly together and 
swallowed.  Her jawline was rigid.  "You did a very good job of keeping 
it under wraps," she told Dr. Richter, her voice flat and even.  A 
little too even. It actually sounded like it was very close to shaking.   
"The receptionist didn't know what we were talking about when we told 
her we were here about the Orwellian case."
 
"Anyone with any shred of common sense would have verified it first.  It 
would have been embarrassing if they didn't," Dr. Richter stated.  
 
"Humiliating," Mulder quipped.  His partner shot him a look.  
 
"What was that for?" Scully asked when they were out of the morgue.  
 
He gave one of those looks that told her he was amused as well as 
irritated.   "Doesn't it surprise you, Scully how everyone regards the 
Orwellian Death as the most tragic epidemic to strike the planet since 
AIDS?"
 
Scully was surprised.  "You don't believe it's tragic?"
 
He stopped by the elevators and pressed the button.  "How much more 
tragic is it than homelessness and starvation and war?"
 
"No one had ever said that homelessness or starvation or war wasn't 
tragic."
 
"But you don't see the world going into a panic about it like they did 
with the Orwellian Death.  Why were we even trying to stop it, anyway?"
 
There was a loud ping and the elevator's doors opened for them.  They 
both stepped in, marvelling at the size of the elevator before 
remembering that doctors wheeled beds in there.
 
"For the same reason we're trying to stop cancer, AIDS, and Parkinson 
Disease," Scully told as she pressed G for ground floor.   "Because 
despite what you think, Mulder, this world does consist of good people 
who want to do good to others.   There are people who trying to make 
this a better world to live in for everyone."
 
"It's such a shame they don't equal the bad people who want to destroy 
it."
 
He knew how to press her buttons.  "Dammit, Mulder," she snapped.  "You 
might as well say we should stop trying to stop murderers, child 
molesters, people who beats their spouses.  God, what is wrong you with 
you?  Your sister dies and you suddenly gain the right to conclude that 
the whole world is evil and no one should try to stop it?  That's worst 
justification for amorality I have ever heard.  Oh God."  
 
She looked at him, cringing at the pain in his face when she mentioned 
his sister.   She felt her mouth go dry.   "Mulder... I didn't mean 
to..."  
 
The elevator door opened.  

He smiled bitterly at her.  "It's okay, Scully," he said.  "You're 
right."  He stepped out of the elevator.
 
Scully closed her eyes briefly, her long silken lashes touching her 
cheekbones.  She should have kept her big mouth shut.  
 
But, Christ, he could be such a pain in the ass sometimes.  
 
"Miss?"  She opened her eyes to see a doctor with a boy in a wheelchair.  
"Are you getting off?"
 
She nodded unsteadily.  "Yes," she said softly.  "Sorry about that."  
 
- - - - - -

The girl and her sister got out of the car together.  Their older sister
had stayed home with her new baby so it was just the four of them 
visiting their grandmother from Ottawa.  They drove all the way to 
Oregon and arrived at their aunt's place yesterday.  Together, the 
family headed to the hospital.  
 
"Do you think Grandmother will look gross?" the younger sister asked the 
girl.  They walked to the hospital side by side.  Their parents and 
relatives lingered behind them.  

"I don't know," said the girl.  She put a hand on the back of her head 
in an attempt to keep the bright sun off her dark hair.  She believed 
that too much sun made her hair brown and she didn't want that.  "I hope 
not.  If she has tubes and stuff coming out of her, I'm going to throw 
up."
 
"Don't blame you.  I hope she doesn't die when we're there."  The 
younger sister shuddered.  "I've never seen anyone die and I don't want 
to just yet.  Have you seen anyone die before?"
 
The girl thought about the faceless people.  It was so long ago; she 
didn't feel like they exist anymore.   The only thing that remained from 
that incident was her guilt and the pictures she drew back then.  Those 
were kept in the knapsack that she carried everywhere.    The pictures 
never stayed far from her.  She carried them the same way the parents 
carried  pictures of their children in their wallets.  "No," she said, her 
voice  hoarse. "Not unless TV counts."

Her sister nodded.  "Yeah, same here.  Hey, we better stop and wait for 
everyone else.  They're slow, but they know where they're going.  We 
don't."  
 
The girl didn't say anything as she stopped and turned around.  She had 
to squint her eyes at the brightness in order to see her family.  Her 
parents were three cars down, walking very slowly.  Her mother had 
arthritic feet.  They were all dressed in dark, like the grandmother had 
already died.  It was strange.  She squinted her eyes and stared at her 
family so more.  The blackness in their clothes seemed to be alive, as 
though the colour was bleeding off the materials.  Running from the 
collars and dripping down to the hems.  
 
They ran off the clothing, filling the air and the girl's peripheral 
view with darkness.   They seemed to be swirling really, leaking off 
various parts of the clothes and moving out in circles until they 
collided in one another, until all she could see was a thick, dull ink.  
Even her sister disappeared.
 
She was alone in the darkness until another girl appeared.
 
This girl wasn't standing up like she was though.  She was lying on a 
table, tubes coming out of her, pale, limp, exhausted.  She was also 
crying as someone continued to poke her with instrument that made the 
former killer flinch.  
 
When the flinch was over, the girl in her image was gone, and the 
darkness had disappeared.  The former killer blinked at the light, her 
eyes adjusting to seeing colour again.  
 
Her sister put a hand on her shoulder.  "Are you okay?  You were spaced 
out for a moment and then you jerked your shoulders."  

The girl drew a shuddering sigh.  

/Someone is feeling guilty again, but this kind of guilt feels 
familiar./
 
"I'm okay," she said, aware that her voice was uneven.  That she was 
shaking.  She had images of guilt before, but this one had effected her 
in a way the others didn't.  The vision was less than three seconds 
long, but that was all it took to change the world for the former 
killer. Nothing seemed familiar anymore.  Her surrounding felt 
translucent, not real.  The ground was tilting, and her sister faded in 
and out of her vision.  
 
Something wasn't right, but she couldn't put her finger on it.  She had 
this weird feeling in her chest that the world was going to end for her 
soon.   

She pushed the thought out of her mind and walked on.  
  
 - - - - - - -
 
Mulder walked quickly towards the parking lot.  He could hear Scully 
trying to catch up behind him, the quick clicking of her heels against 
the pavement.  He didn't bother to stop or slow down for her.  She was 
feeling bad about what she said to him about his sister in the elevator 
and he knew that.  Still, he couldn't shrug off what she just said, 
mainly because what she said was right.
 
The sun was bright in the parking lot.  He wished he brought his 
sunglasses with him.  The brightness took his mind off what Scully said 
in the elevator for a moment.  When she had mentioned Samantha, he felt 
like someone had shot an electric current through him.  He avoided 
pursuing the conversation any further.  People who wallow in their guilt 
seldomly want to talk about it.  No one wants to feel worthless and 
remorseful, even if they do deserve it.  
 
He looked away from the glare of the sun as he made his way to his car.  
There was a family a few cars down, two girls about ten or eleven in the 
front.  One of them was dressed like an ordinary teenager, jeans, 
airwalks, and a sleeveless top with "Hole" printed over her chest.  The 
other one, who looked younger, was dressed conservatively, a cardigan 
over her white blouse that was tucked into a pleated skirt.  Her hair 
was pulled into two tight braids that fell all the way down her back and 
unlike her companion, she wore no make-up or jewellery.  
 
Mulder didn't know why he took every detail of the second girl.  He 
couldn't help but feel like that girl held some answer to a problem he 
had been working on for a very long time.  She seemed different and 
/necessary/ for some reason.  He couldn't explain it.
God, he knew why people called him Spooky now.
 
He looked at her.  She was about three metres away from him, looking 
through him at the hospital where her grandmother laid dying.  The girl 
sensed his presence, lift her chin up and looked at his face.

Their eyes never met.  Something flashed between them quickly, something 
that made Mulder gasp out loud.  He looked away and turned his attention 
back to the girl.  
 
And hell broke loose.
 
He didn't knew exactly what happened, or how it happened, but the girl was 
suddenly on the parking lot floor, unconscious.  Her back was arched, 
her arms and legs flailing in jerky, rigid movements.  A thin line of 
blood trickled out of her mouth and down her chin, turning the froth 
around her mouth red.  She was shaking violently.  
 
Her family was screaming, her parents and aunts and uncles trying to 
hold her limbs down, the other girl wearing the "Hole" shirt shrieking 
to them to let go of her.  
 
Scully, thank God, was only a few steps behind Mulder and took control 
of the situation.  "Everyone get away from her!" she ordered, breaking 
into the family circle.  "I'm a doctor!  Get the hell away from her!"

The girl wearing the "Hole" shirt screamed at her mother and pulled the 
hysterical woman off the unconscious child.  Everyone else let go of the 
girl.
 
Mulder ran to the hospital to get help while Scully put undid the first 
few button of the girl's blouse and skirt.   She took off her heavy 
jacket and placed it under the girl's head as a form of soft padding.  
The girl was still convulsing and Scully switched between making sure 
the girl didn't hurt herself too much as she continued to spasm on the 
hard ground floor and yelling at the family to not come any closer.  
 
The doctors arrived less than half a minute from when it happened.  The 
family was going clearly shaken up, particularly the mother.  Only the 
girl in the "Hole" shirt was collected and composed. Mulder heard her 
say to a doctor, "It has happened before," as they took who Mulder 
assumed was her sister into the hospital.  

The family followed the doctors into hospital and the parking lot was 
quiet again.  The sun was shining brightly.  
 
Scully sighed and got back into the car.  
 
Mulder looked at her briefly.  Scully looked just like she did before 
the girl had her seizure: calm, cool, unaffected.  There was a touch of 
annoyance in her face when she looked back at Mulder.  The expression on 
her face clearly said, "Come on, Mulder.  I want to go now."  
 
He ignored her and looked back at where the girl had convulsed.  Scully 
had unsnapped the straps to the girl's knapsack and it laid forgotten on 
the parking lot ground.  It was full, bulging with something that was 
roughly the shape of loose leaf paper.  Mulder wondered what the contents
were, but he decided against invading her privacy.
 
"Hey."
 
He turned to see the girl wearing the "Hole" shirt.  "Can you thank that 
woman in the car for helping out with my sister?" she asked.  
 
Mulder nodded.  The girl smiled and picked up her sister's bag.  
"Thanks.  Tell her I'm sorry about my family.  They're not the smartest 
bunch when it comes to these kind of things.  Sheesh, the last time this 
happen, an old man at my church grabbed her head and started to slam it 
against the floor in an attempt to wake her up.  Aren't they off their 
nut or what?  And I keep telling to not hold her down if it happens."
 
"Is she epileptic?"
 
"The last time we checked, she wasn't.  But after this, I can't be sure 
anymore.  I hope she isn't."  She took two small steps backwards,  
cradled the bag to her chest and turned around.
 
Mulder cleared his throat and she looked back.   He stammered out the 
first few words.  "I- I don't mean to pry," he started.  
 
She waited for him to continued.  She was actually very pretty, much 
more so than her sister, with eyes that were rounder and larger than the 
average Chinese girl.  She also appeared older than he had first 
suspected, probably thirteen or fourteen.
 
"What your sister's name?" Mulder asked.

Her expression changed, but the transformation was subtle.  "Muchou," 
the girl said softly.  "It means sorrow free.  It's a cursed name."  
Then, as if she said too much, she looked away and ran towards the 
hospital.  
 
Mulder got into the car with Scully.  
 
"Who was that?" his partner asked.  
 
Mulder looked out the window.  Scully was pulling the car out of their 
parking space.  "The sister.  She wanted me to thank you for helping out 
with the seizure."
 
"It must have been the first time.  The family didn't know what to do."

"Actually, according to her sister, it happened before.  I'm curious 
when though.  Do you think we can get a hold of her medical files?"

Scully eyed him dubiously and paid for the parking fee at the same time.  
"Why would you want her files for?" she queried.  
 
"Thank you ma'am."  The parking lot attendant  handed Scully her change.
 
"Keep the change."  

"Thanks again."

She drove out of the hospital parking lot.  Mulder continued to look out 
the window, his expression pensive.  Scully tried to get his attention 
again.  "Mulder," she said, louder and sharper, "what do you want the 
girl's medical files for?"
 
Mulder didn't answer.  He was still shaking from the experience.  He 
could sworn that after the girl had looked at him, before she had her 
seizure, he saw Samantha.  
 
- - - - - - -

End of Part Six
Continued in Part Seven