From: alicia_k@my-deja.com
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 22:30:36 GMT
Subject: NEW: Pleased to Meet Me by Alicia K. (1 of 1)

Title: "Pleased to Meet Me" (a Scullyfic
Improv story)
Author: Alicia K. (spartcus1@msn.com)
Rating: PG-13, for some stuff
Category: Humor
Summary: Meet Mulders number one through
nine.
Spoilers:  None.
Archive: Scullyfic Improv Archive and Spookys
Okay. Anywhere else, please ask first.
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine.

Notes: Idea loosely borrowed from a Calvin
and Hobbes storyline. Thanks to Punk for
beta, and to August, Cofax, Jess, and Livia for
giving me encouraging words like "wonky."

I make no apologies for the sheer silliness
of this story.  <g>

XXX

There was a perfectly logical explanation
for the nine Mulders (ten, if you counted
the real one) running around San Francisco.
Perhaps not a scientific explanation, but a
logical one.  Perhaps not logical, but
serviceable, if nothing else.

Mulder had stepped into a replicator, just
for fun, and had created a perfect clone of
himself, right down to the Armani suit and
pouty lip.  While he had awkwardly explained
to Scully, said clone went ahead and made
eight more.

And now there were nine Mulders running
around San Francisco, and she and the
original Mulder had to find them all.

Scully had a headache.  She rubbed her
forehead while Simone, Dr. Abon's assistant,
explained to them how the replicator worked.

The machine was the creation of the now-
deceased Dr. Abon, an eccentric inventor
known in certain circles throughout the
country.  Those circles included Mulder, who
had insisted the case was an X-File because
the skin of the smoking corpse had been
green.

When they arrived, Scully quickly deduced
that the poor man had simply been
electrocuted while trying to create a
pocket-sized toaster.  The combination of
chemicals in his pockets had caused the odd
discoloration.

Before she could yell at Mulder for dragging
her away from her lazy Sunday back home, he
cloned himself, and then everything else
became decidedly less important.

Simone pulled her black, purple streaked
hair back into a ponytail and snapped her
gum.  "Well, guess we'd better get out there
and find them.  Once they got out the back
door, four went in one direction, and five
went in the other."  She pulled a pair of
yellow-tinted sunglasses from the pocket of
her pristine lab coat.  "Come on.  I'll
drive."

Scully didn't feel like arguing with the
woman; she felt like she was in a bizarre
dream.  She wondered if she'd inhaled some
funky chemicals from Dr. Abon's lab and was
now hallucinating.  But no, Simone was
already leading the way, and Mulder looked
as out of sorts as Scully felt.

"I don't understand it," Scully said in the
car.  She clicked off her cell phone,
frowning at the incredulous tone of the
detective she had just spoken to.  He of
course wanted to know what the hell she
meant by "There are nine men who look
exactly like Agent Mulder."  She wasn't sure
herself.

Simone turned down the volume on the radio.
"It's not rocket science," she said.  "Dr.
Abon built a replicator.  It replicates
things.  Mulder walked into it when it was
on auto mode.  The clone did the same thing,
but he did it eight times."

Mulder leaned over, his panic face a bit
less serene than normal.  "Scully, I swear,"
he whispered urgently.  "I didn't know what
that thing was!  I just went inside to check
it out!"

Scully ignored him.  "But it doesn't make
sense!  There's no scientific evidence to
even remotely support it!"  Simone only
shrugged.  Scully sighed and leaned back
against the seat, arms folded over her
chest.  It was ridiculous, she thought.
Mulder and the purple-haired woman must have
been hallucinating. There could be no other
explanation for it!  Pure science fiction.
It was ...

"Look!"  Mulder's shout came only seconds
before Simone pulled the car over with a
screech of tires.

Scully gaped out the window.  Standing on
the sidewalk in front of a hardware store
were two Mulders.  They appeared to be
fighting; one had his hand on the second
one's face, the other had a hand on the
first one's thigh.  Neither hand moved, as
if they were stuck. All they did was push
and swat at each other with their free
hands.

"Let go of me!"

"Get your hand off my leg, asshole!"

"Yeah? Well get your leg off my hand!"

Scully got out of the car, mouth wide open
in astonishment as she stared at the two
Mulders in front of her.  "Mulder?" she said
experimentally, to see who would respond.

"Yeah?" responded the Mulder at her side.
The two clones stopped grappling and turned
their way, guilty expressions on their
faces.

"Damn!" The one with a hand stuck to his
face yelled.  "How did we get caught
already?"

"If you hadn't screwed this up, we'd be long
gone!" the other one yelled, delivering a
sharp kick.

The real Mulder walked up to the two clones
and just looked at them.  They looked back,
as sullen as little kids who got caught
finger painting the dog.

Scully intervened when the staring contest
went into overtime.  "What's going on?"

The clone with the hand on his thigh dug
into his pocket and pulled out a tube of
super glue.  The other raised his free hand
to scratch his face, and Scully saw a dollar
bill stuck to the side of his hand.

"We wanted to glue a dollar onto the
sidewalk and watch people try to pick it
up," explained hand-on-face.

Scully turned to Mulder, eyebrow raised.
"Guess your Oxford education didn't come
with the package."

Mulder refused to sit in the back seat with
the two clones on the way to the police
station.  So Scully ended up mashed against
the door, getting an occasional elbow in the
side for good measure as the clones refused
to stop fighting.  Mulder sat in the front
seat and craned himself around to stare at
them.

Scully started elbowing back.

XXX

"Scully," Mulder said at the police station.
"What if we find more of them, and you can't
tell us apart?"

He sounded genuinely concerned about this;
she didn't blame him.  Scully figured he
didn't want to end up in a jail cell with
his brand new clones. They had dropped off
the first pair with instructions to "keep
them here until we figure out what to do,
and see if you can get them unstuck," and
were now waiting for the next sighting to be
called in.

Scully opened the pencil drawer of the
borrowed desk and pulled out a blue Sharpie.
Mulder clapped his hand over his forehead
and glared at her, but she just shook her
head and reached for his hand.

"I thought you were going to write "Mulder"
on my forehead," he said with relief as she
drew a blue smiley face on the back of his
hand.

"I should," she said, though not unkindly.
"It would serve you right for cloning
yourself nine times."

"But I didn't ..." he began before being
interrupted by Captain Scheffer.

"You'll never guess where five of them just
turned up."

XXX

"This is my worst nightmare," Mulder said as
they viewed the scene before them.  "I'm in
the Ice Capades."

Sure enough, five Mulder clones were in the
middle of the arena, skating blissfully
away.  They had snuck into a matinee
performance of Stars on Ice, stolen five
pairs of skates, and invaded the ice.

Simone snapped her gum beside them.  "Hey,
they're not bad."

Scully bit back a smile at Mulder's
answering glare.  A clone breezed past them
and executed a perfect jump.  The crowd
paused in its confusion to let out a
collective, "Ooooooh!"

Paul Durbin, chief of security for the
arena, spoke up.  "Yeah, see -- we would have
gotten them off the ice right away, but the
crowd seems to really be enjoying them.
It's not often we get quintuplet figure
skaters this good."

"Especially wearing Armani suits," Scully
added, watching the skaters perform a five-
man death spiral.  The crowd was on its
feet.  Mulder looked mortified.

After the skating Mulders performed side-by-
side triple toe loops, the real Mulder spoke
up. "I've had about enough of this.  How do
we make them stop?"

As if on cue, the professional skaters came
onto the ice, wearing their costumes and
looking pissed.  They charged and had the
five clones corralled within minutes.  As
the suit-wearing skaters were escorted off
the ice, the crowd applauded wildly and
threw flowers down toward them.

Scully brushed a few stray petals from her
hair and nodded toward Durbin.  "Thank you.
Sorry for the trouble."

Durbin smiled and shrugged, seemingly
bemused by the whole thing. It wasn't every
day an ice show was sabotaged by skating
quintuplets.

Five clones, two partners, and a girl with
purple streaked hair couldn't very well fit
into one car, and so they waited for a
second police car to help cart them back to
the station.

The clones sat patiently in the car; they
hadn't said one word since Mulder, Scully
and Simone had arrived.  Scully stared at
the clones, Mulder looked anywhere but the
clones, Simone snapped her gum.

"What do we do when we catch them?" Scully
had asked Simone after they'd brought in the
first faux Mulder.

The younger woman had shrugged.  "Dunno yet.
But I'd better stick with you, just in
case."

"Just in case what?"

"Just in case they, I don't know, turn evil
or something.  Gum?"

The police finally arrived, and as Mulder
and Scully helped three of the still silent
but smiling clones into the other car,
Scully saw something out of the corner of
her eye.

It was another clone, standing on the
corner, watching her.  She faced him and he
grinned broadly, the glint in his eyes
making it almost a leer.

She'd caught Mulder checking her out from
time to time, but it was never this blatant,
this obvious.  Scully caught herself as the
blush rose over her chest and neck. "Hey!"
she yelled.

He bolted, and she and Mulder gave chase.
Around the corner, up the hill -- Scully was
used to running in her heels, but not up the
hills of San Francisco.  She fell behind
Mulder's long legs and flat shoes.  Panting,
she reached the top of the hill in time to
see the clone jump onto a passing cable car.

When he saw Scully, he winked and grabbed
his crotch.  Scully refrained from shooting
at the crowded car.

"Shit," Mulder hissed, bent at the waist and
breathing heavily.

"Well," she said.  "That one apparently got
your id."

Mulder had the grace to blush.

XXX

Again they waited at the police station.
Mulder ate sunflower seeds, Scully jotted
notes, Simone braided her streaked hair and
snapped her gum.

"So you think that last one was my id,"
Mulder mused. "The first two could be
manifestations of my inner child."  He
leaned back in his chair, far enough for the
front legs to lift from the floor.  "What do
you think about the ice skaters?"

Simone grinned.  "Easy.  A deep seated
desire to be in the Ice Capades."

The chair legs dropped back to the floor.
Mulder pointed at her with the bag of seeds.
"No."

Captain Scheffer poked his head through the
doorway.  "Got another one."

XXX

This clone was in an open-air market,
wandering leisurely among the shoppers,
stopping to admire the plentiful fresh cut
flowers for sale.

Mulder, Scully and Simone hung back to watch
him.  "Doesn't have a care in the world,"
Scully murmured.

"Let's split up," Mulder said.  "I'll sneak
around and come at him from the other
direction, you and Simone stay here.  That
way we're covered if he tries to run off."

Mulder disappeared into the crowd, and
Scully and Simone dared to move a little
closer to the clone.  As if sensing their
presence, the clone stopped smelling the
flowers and looked around.

Scully put her hand on Simone's arm to stop
her, and they waited. The clone looked right
at them and gave a smile that lit up his
whole face.  To Scully's surprise, he
started walking toward them.

"Shit," she hissed, grabbing for her
handcuffs.  "Mulder!"

The clone stopped in front of her and held
out a long-stemmed rose.  "Here," he said
shyly.

And then there were two Mulders in front of
her.  There was confusion and scuffling, and
Scully stepped in to cuff the clone.

"No! Wait, Scully!"

She looked down at the cuffed hands she held
in her own and saw the blue smiley face
winking back up at her.  "Damn it!"

The clone had gotten away.

XXX

Mulder, Scully and Simone sat down to
strategize.  "So we have two clones that
keep running away," Scully said.

Simone, who appeared to be growing tired of
the game, sighed.  "One wants to jump you,
the other wants to woo you."  Mulder, to his
credit, did not blush this time.

Scully bit back a smile.  "Perhaps."

Mulder coughed.  "Be that as it may, the
most important thing is that they don't want
to be caught.  We could get more help from
the police, but this," he shook his head,
"this is too weird.  I just want to get this
done and get out of here."

Scully agreed that yes, it was very weird,
and the three pondered this silently for a
few minutes. Simone blew a large pink bubble
with her gum and sucked it back in with a
slurp.  "Well, they both want you.  Why
don't you lure them in?"

Mulder and Scully looked at each other; the
idea had its merit.  They had no reason to
suspect the clones had malicious intent, and
it was probably the easiest way to snag them
without getting others involved.

"Okay," Scully said, folding her hands on
the desktop.  "So how do we set a trap for
lusty Mulder and sappy Mulder?"

XXX

When they got word of the next sighting,
they put the plan into action; Scully
approached the clone while Mulder stayed out
of sight, watching carefully.

The clone hadn't spotted her yet.  He was
sitting at a small, wrought iron table
outside a coffee shop, a mug and an open
book in front of him.

This must be the romantic one, she thought
when she saw the pensive way he was staring
up at the clouds.  "Hi, Mulder."

He smiled that huge smile; he didn't look
like he wanted to run, but he did glance
around to see if the real Mulder were
hovering nearby.  "Hello."  He sounded
almost shy, and Scully felt a pang of
something bittersweet; was this the kind of
man Mulder could have been if his life
hadn't gotten in the way?

"May I join you?" she asked, pulling out a
chair across from him.

The plan was to get the clone back to her
hotel room, where there was less chance of
him running away or disappearing into a
crowd.  And so twenty minutes later, she had
succeeded, having convinced him she just
wanted to talk in private.

Mulder was supposed to follow them back, and
should have been ready to burst into the
room at her signal.

"Make yourself at home," she said, hanging
up her coat. "I'm starving," she announced
loudly, then waited.

The clone stood in the middle of the room
and looked at her.  No one burst through the
door.  "I said, `I'm starving!'"

After a beat, the clone obediently went to
the mini bar.  Scully rolled her eyes.
Where the hell was Mulder?

"What would you like to eat?"

She waved a hand dismissively.  "Oh,
whatever."  She sat down on the edge of the
bed and wondered if she could get away with
announcing her hunger a third time.

The clone presented her with a mini box of
Golden Grahams.  "How about these?" he
asked.  "I thought of you when I saw them
because you have such a golden smile."

Well, she thought.  Maybe she could stick it
out a while longer.

XXX

When Mulder finally came in she was sitting
on the bed, eating the dry cereal from the
box.  The clone was kneeling in front of
her, holding her foot on his thigh while he
brushed pink nail polish on her toenails.

"Oh, Jesus.  Freeze."  Mulder's declaration
was half-hearted, at best.  Scully thought
he looked embarrassed.  He definitely looked
wet.  "What are you doing?"

The clone scrambled to his feet.  "This was
a trap?"

"I'm sorry," Scully affirmed gently, taking
the bottle of polish from him.  "What took
you so long?"

"I asked first."

She shrugged.  "He asked me if he could
paint my toenails.  I figured there wasn't
any harm, since I was waiting," she said
pointedly.

Now he did look embarrassed.  "I saw the
other one.  I almost had him, but he grabbed
a bucket of water from a flower stand and
threw it at me."  He grimaced.  "When I
stopped sputtering, he was gone."

Scheffer and Simone showed up then to
collect the clone.  Scully felt a little
sorry for him; he looked so disappointed.
"Thanks for the cereal," she said, shaking
the nearly empty box in her hand.

The clone pouted on his way out the door.

"Well."  Mulder scuffed his shoe on the
carpet.

"What's the matter?" she asked, wiggling her
freshly painted toes.

He shook his head.  "Nothing. Let's go."

Scully frowned.  "But my toenails aren't dry
yet."  Mulder scowled at her, so she put her
shoes back on, grumbling about sticky polish
and ruined shoes.

XXX

The last clone had been spotted at a
bookstore a block away.  "Okay," Scully said
when they had arrived.  "I don't want to
take my chances with this one.  Come in as
soon as we get into the room."

"Don't worry," Mulder grumbled. "I will."

Scully wandered among the rows and shelves
of books, looking for him.  She finally
spotted him in the "Sexuality" section.
What a shocker, she thought, walking quietly
up behind him.

"What are you reading?"

She had to give him credit; he didn't even
jump at her surprise approach.  He just
looked over his shoulder and gave her a slow
smile.  Jeez, she thought, swallowing
heavily.  Good thing this wasn't really
Mulder.

He turned to face her, crowding her personal
space.  She forced herself not to step back,
instead looking up into his dark eyes.  In
one hand he held an open hardcover book, a
cherry red popsicle in the other.

"Want a taste?" he asked, his voice low and
smooth.

She didn't quite trust her voice, so she
just smiled and took it from him.  As she
slowly sucked on it, he handed her the book.

It was the Kama Sutra.  Oh, she thought,
relieved to be regaining control of the
situation.  This would be easy.

She gave the popsicle one last good lick and
let it slide slowly from her lips.  Glancing
up at him, she saw his mouth drop open. She
quirked the corner of her mouth up in a
smile and began to read:

"Her limbs, entwined in yours like tendrils
of fragrant jasmine creeper, draw taut and
slowly relax in the gentle rhythm of linga
and yoni: this is "Lataveshta," the Clinging
Creeper."

She flipped to another page.  The clone
swallowed audibly beside her and leaned
closer; she could feel his warm breath
tickling her hair.

"If the lady, eager for love, goes on all
fours, humping her back like a doe, and you
enjoy her from behind, rutting as though
you'd lost all human nature, it is "Hirana,"
the Deer."

She closed the book and stuck the popsicle
back into her mouth, looking up at him in a
satisfied way.  The horny clone looked down
at her and licked his lips.

"Come with me," she purred, putting the book
back on the shelf.

XXX

Scully finished the popsicle as Mulder
cuffed the last, very peeved clone.  Mulder
had simply waltzed into the room behind
Scully and his lothario twin.

They followed Scheffer and the clone back to
the police station, where they led the final
clone into the cell with his duplicates.
"This is so unfair!" he complained, looking
at the disgruntled faces of the others.

Scheffer slammed the cell door shut and
crossed his arms over his beefy chest.  "So
now what?"

Mulder, Scully, Scheffer and Simone stood
and studied the nine Mulders in the cell.
The Mulders stared back.

"Good question," Simone responded helpfully.
"Dr. Abon didn't get around to making an un-
replicator."

One of the still glued together clones
flipped them the bird; Mulder eagerly
returned the gesture.

"Well I'm not going to stand here and let
them stare at me all day," she said, turning
to go.

A hand reached out and grabbed Scully's ass;
she didn't turn around to see which Mulder
it was.

XXX

"So," Mulder mused, biting into a powdered
doughnut. "All of these ... duplicates are a
manifestation of my inner selves."

Simone passed him a napkin, and he wiped the
sugar from his nose. "Dr. Abon was pretty
existential."  She smiled fondly for a
moment, apparently lost in memory before
pushing back her chair and rising.  "I'm
going to go try and talk to them."

"Good luck," Scully offered.  When the young
woman was gone, she smiled at Mulder.  "So."

Mulder put down his doughnut and looked at
her.  "I do not have a deep-seated desire to
be in the Ice Capades."

"Sure.  And?"

"I have a fantasy about painting your
toenails."

She nodded.  "Uh-huh.  And the Kama Sutra?"
Mulder blushed.  Scully grinned.  "You have
sugar on your nose again, Mulder."

"Agents!"  They both jumped at Scheffer's
shout.  "Get down here!"

They raced down to the holding cell, which
now only held three Mulders. "Where'd they
go?" Scully asked.

"Just watch," Simone whispered, excitement
coloring her voice.

Mulder and Scully watched as, one by one,
the remaining Mulders disappeared with a
puff of smoke and a small popping sound.

Within a minute, there was only one left.
He gave a heavy sigh, tossed a forlorn look
at Scully, and then all that remained were a
few wisps of smoke hanging in the air.

Simone let out an amazed laugh and shook her
head.  "Dr. Abon never did get all the bugs
worked out."

XXX

Somewhere over middle America, Scully tried
to get comfortable in the too-small window
seat.

"Hey, Scully?"  She shoved the tiny square
of pillow behind her head and looked
expectantly at Mulder.

"So which clone did you like best?" he
asked, waggling his eyebrows and giving her
a practiced leer.

Scully refrained from rolling her eyes; she
knew he was looking for a popsicle Kama
Sutra reference.  "I don't know, Mulder.  I
kind of liked the ice skating ones."

Mulder looked disgusted; he turned away in
a huff and made a big show of trying to get
comfortable.

Scully kicked off her shoes and wiggled her toes.
"Well," she said with a long-suffering sigh.
"I guess I could use a pedicure."

He didn't face her, but she heard his smile in
his voice.  "I'll bring the Golden Grahams."

END OF UTTER SILLINESS.

XXX

Feedback is fabulous: spartcus1@msn.com

The elements were:

--Scully eating Golden Grahams while Mulder
paints her toenails. (Laura)
--Crazy glue. (Kelly)
--Scully eating a popsicle and reading out
loud from the "Kama Sutra." (Kim)
--Mulder and/or Scully hitching a ride on
the back of a trolley. (Snark)
--Mulder, Scully and the Ice Capades. (A.K.
Gerdes)

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