From: StefRobrts@aol.com Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 20:44:25 EDT Subject: NEW: Procedures (1/7) by Stephanie Roberts Title - Procedures (1 / 7) Author - Stephanie Roberts E-Mail - stefrobrts@aol.com Archive - Gossamer OK, Elsewhere with permission Rating - R for violent content, disturbing themes Category - X, MSR Spoilers - Fight the Future, The X Files Game Keywords - None Summary - The reopening of the X Files are put on hold while Mulder and Scully are assigned to assist the Seattle FBI Office in catching a bizarre serial murderer. This story can be found in its entirety at: http://members.aol.com/stefrobrts/xfiles.htm Procedures An X-File by Stephanie Roberts, with badgering from David "you need an antagonist" Roberts Disclaimer: All hail Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and the Fox Network. They own the characters, I own the plot. I'd appreciate them not suing me for this little exercise in creativity. Author's notes: Many thanks to Jill for bravely reading it first. I'd also like to make a plea to all readers to be sure and give feedback, not just to me, but to anyone whose stories you read. Throwing this stuff out to the world for everyone else's enjoyment is tough, and it's nice to know it's appreciated, so please be generous with the feedback. No kiddies on this ride, please! Buckle up folks, here we go! Prologue -------- Seattle, WA Pioneer Square June 16, 10:13PM A little action, that was what he needed, he thought to himself as he pulled his car over. He pressed the power window button to lower the passenger window as he pulled up near the women lined up along the curb. A number of them pushed towards his car to get his attention, letting their tube tops, mini-skirts, and fishnet stockings do most of the talking for them. "Too old, whites only, no fatties," he callously dismissed the women until only one remained, a very small woman who stood shyly away from the car. "How about you, toots? Move up here so I can get a look at you." She leaned into the window and looked at him. He took one look at her tiny body, small breasts, and soft pale skin, and knew she was trouble. "What are you, 14, 15?" "I'm 18, I'm just small for my age." She said, trying to sound seductive. "You're jail-bait, honey. You're not a day over 16, I'll bet." He leaned down and looked out the windows all around him. "What is this, some kind of sting? I'm not getting busted for this. I'm out of here." He jammed the car into drive and left the curb so fast he nearly hit an old camaro driving slowly down the street. The car stopped and the driver beckoned to the young girl. She walked over, as sexily as she could muster and leaned into the passenger window. "What can I do for you?" She asked, trying to sound seductive, even though her voice cracked a little with nerves. "I'm sure we can think of something," his voice was velvety smooth. "Get in." The green dash lights dimly lighted his face, throwing his profile into stark relief, highlighting his thick beard. His glasses reflected the green light with their flat lenses, glowing like cat's eyes. She gathered her courage and got into the car. He pulled away from the curb and she sat awkwardly for a moment, not knowing what to say next. "My name's Tina," she finally offered. "That's not going to matter." He reached over and laid a hand on her arm, and she felt a buzz followed by a wave of tingling that seemed to flow over her. She sunk back against the seat, feeling suddenly drowsy and weak, thinking she might doze off before they got wherever he was taking her. Back on the curb two of the other women were watching intently. "Did you see that new girl get picked up?" "Yeah, what luck, her first night out. It's disgusting when they go for the young ones like that." She shivered, remembering some awful experience in her past. "Well, I'll bet he was rich, did you see that car? I hope she comes back tomorrow and lets us know what she got for her trouble." The other replied. *********** The man had left the girl unconscious in the room at the back of the basement. He believed no one would ever think to look in this house and find the room, so he didn't bother to hide it. In fact, the only reason he had even chosen the basement was for practicality sake: easy cleanup, contained sounds and smells well, was difficult to escape from and impossible to signal for help from. But, unlike the bare room where he kept his 'patients', this room was filled with electronic equipment. There was a workbench, covered with circuit boards, soldering equipment, wires, capacitors, and other little electrical components. Sitting on another workbench nearby was the result of all his labor. All his years of tinkering and experimenting had been aimed at producing this machine. It resembled a small generator, but with a 'V' of metal rods poking out of the top of it, like an old-fashioned TV set. He picked up two wristbands, which were attached to the machine by thick wires, and slipped them onto his wrists, making sure the metal buttons inside the bands made good contact with his skin. He reached out and pushed a rocker switch with his thumb and power began to flow through the machine with a low, thrumming hum. The basement lights dimmed and the only light came from the flickering blue light of the sparks that crackled up between the vertical rods. A familiar buzz shook him as the energy entered his body through the metal buttons in the wrist straps. His skin would have burned had it not already been toughened with thick scar tissue that had developed from repeated use of the machine. He felt a fullness in his body and his heart fluttered as it received random electrical pulses. He delighted in the feeling, feeling the power build and feeling his body's living reaction to it. Finally he reached the rocker switch with a shaking hand and the machine turned off. The basement lights came back up. He shakily removed the wristbands and rubbed his hands together for a minute, feeling the shivers run up his arms from the electricity he had absorbed. He still did not understand the process by which his body stored the electricity, but he found it convenient and so didn't question it much. It had been bestowed upon him by a higher power, to allow him to pursue his other interests. Since he was a little boy he had fantasized about operating on people, having the power of life and death in his hands. Now, through a strange twist of fate he had this machine which gave him the power to subdue his 'patients'. He could meter the electrical charge in his body and release it on them by touch, giving just enough charge to effect what he needed. If he just wanted to calm them and prevent them from fleeing, it would be a gentle buzz that left them weakened, if they were dying, he could put them out of their misery with a touch of his hand and a burning jolt of fire, as if from God. He liked that part best. To his patients, he was God. He heard a crash in the other room and went to investigate. *********** She awoke in a darkened room, a bright light hanging over her. She was lying on a metal table, her naked body covered only by a thin, white sheet which was pulled up and covered her face. She pulled it down quickly, afraid for a second that she had been left for dead, but her gasping breaths reassured her that she was still alive. The room was chilled, like a morgue, and she shivered under the unprotective cover. For a minute the lights dimmed considerably and then came back to full brightness. She heard a buzzing sound coming from outside the room, like the sound effects of an electric chair in the movies, and she wondered what kind of place this was. With a touch of panic, she sat up and looked around, wondering how she had arrived here after being picked up by the stranger in the car. Stars danced before her eyes for a moment as the blood struggled to reach her head after laying flat for so long, and her heart began to pound in fear and confusion. There were five other metal tables in the room, each positioned in a pool of bright light from dangling, hooded ceiling lamps. On the tables were four other people, each covered from head to toe by a white sheet, bringing to mind creepy old horror movies she had liked to watch with her sister. They had been fun to watch, curled up together in the basement of her parent's house, but she was horrified to see she now had a role of her own to play. She quickly gathered her sheet around her, though her fingers felt rubbery and hard to use, and swung her legs over the side of the table. The table was too high for her to easily reach her feet to the ground, so she jumped off, feeling her feet slap against the cold stone floor. Her knees nearly buckled and her legs felt wobbly, but she ignored it and moved on. She was almost afraid to breathe as she approached the nearest table. Pulling back the sheet revealed a young man, near her own age. She touched him and received a mild static shock, which made her yelp in surprise. Forcing herself to be calm, she laid her hand on his arm again and found he was warm, and not dead, though his shallow breathing scarcely gave that away. Gingerly, she poked his arm with her fingers, hoping to get a response. "Hello?" she said, her voice small and mousy in the huge empty room. "Can you wake up? I don't know where we are." There was no response from him, so she went to the next table. Here was an older man. A sheet covered his body, though it was stained and rumpled. She reached out to touch him, to see if he would wake up and help her. He was rough looking, covered with tattoos, and, she realized as her fingers pressed against his skin, stone cold. She gasped, almost screamed, and backed away from the table so fast she bumped into the boy's table behind her. The table moved enough to upset an industrial-looking floor lamp that was standing behind it, and it fell to the floor and shattered with an echoing crash. She backed away from it, looking around in terror. There was a door at the end of the room and she felt sure someone would come to investigate the noise. She ran to it, hoping to escape before anyone had a chance to come in. Wrestling with the doorknob for a moment, she pulled it open and began to charge through.. into the arms of the man who had brought her here. He grabbed her, holding her small arms with his bare hands and squeezed. She felt a powerful shock of electricity where he touched her, burning her, leaving the scent of singed flesh in the air. Before she could protest, her legs buckled and her back went numb, leaving her slumped helplessly in his hands like a rag doll. "Now, where were you going, little girl?" His voice was angry and threatening, conveying the hatred that welled up within him at the thought that she had tried to defy him. He shook her limp body to accentuate each word. "I'm not done with you yet." She felt consciousness slipping away as he threw her over his shoulder and carried her back into the room. Chapter 1 --------- Washington, DC FBI Headquarters June 17, 10:07am Assistant Director Skinner looked at the paperwork on his desk without really seeing it, and looked at his watch again. He had called a meeting at ten AM, and he didn't expect to be kept waiting. Finally, his phone buzzed and his secretary announced that Agents Mulder and Scully were in the outer office. He thanked her and went back to looking at the paperwork. Now it's their turn to wait, he thought. After another ten minutes he went to the door and signaled them to come in. They quietly filed into his office, Mulder first, and seated themselves in front of his desk. He was pleased by their suitably submissive behavior. Apparently being made to wait had conveyed his disappointment with their lateness sufficiently. He sat back down behind his desk and opened a case file. "Good morning, agents. I hope you can make it on time next time I ask for you." "Yes, Sir, we apologize for our lateness." Scully said, a little too quickly. Skinner noticed Mulder shooting her a look that said the apology wasn't sanctioned by him. Knowing Mulder, the extra time spent waiting in the outer office had done more to irritate him than to knock him down a notch for being late. "I know you two are eager to get the X Files back up and running, but I have another assignment for you first. It looks like it fits nicely into both of your areas of expertise." "And what would that be, sir?" Mulder was sitting back in the chair, hands in his lap, but his demeanor said in no uncertain terms that nothing was more important than getting the X Files back on track, anything else was not worthy of his attention. "There's been a series of murders in Seattle. Eight so far. In each case the victim has been found with various body parts or organs removed with surgical precision. The Seattle FBI office has requested our assistance." He looked from one agent to the other. There was no reaction from Scully, she was patiently waiting to hear more. Mulder, however, was fidgeting in his seat. "Is this not interesting enough for you, Agent Mulder?" Skinner got up and walked around to the front of his desk and sat on the edge, towering over the seated agents. "The Seattle office should be able to handle it. What do you need us on this for? We should be working on the X Files." Mulder was trying to keep the disdain out of his voice, but it was clearly coming through. Skinner let him have his say, and waited for a moment after he stopped to let the silence settle over the room. Scully shifted uncomfortably in her chair, certain Mulder was going to butt heads with Skinner before they got out of there, and not really wanting to be present for the show. She looked at Mulder and he looked back at her, and even though nobody's lips were moving, Skinner thought they were having a full-on argument in the silence. He cleared his throat and their attention snapped back to him. "Well, Agent Mulder, this might not be what you prefer to investigate, but the police still need some solid leads to catch this monster before he strikes again. They've requested we provide a profiler to look over the evidence and weigh the circumstances surrounding each victim, and give them a direction to go in looking for this guy." Mulder conceded, still fuming, and even a little more annoyed that he could see where Skinner was going with this. "Furthermore, the King County Medical Examiner's Office has requested some assistance in examining the victims, seeing as how they don't want to risk destroying any valuable evidence through mishandling." He looked at Scully. "Now, where do you think I could find a team consisting of a top-notch profiler and one of our best forensic pathologists?" "But sir, we were just getting back to the X Files," Mulder protested again. "Yes, but there are people dying in Seattle, and we can help stop it. I would think you would want to help out where you could." Skinner lowered his voice, which was more intimidating than raising it would have been. "Additionally, you two haven't come out of this unscathed. Just because you were given your pet project back doesn't mean you're out of the woods with those in authority positions around here. There are some who'd still like to shut you down again." "How does sending us to Seattle help?" Scully asked. "Because I want everyone to see that you two are still valuable assets. If you go to Seattle, cooperate with the regional field office agents and the county resources, and catch the bad guy, it's going to look good for both of you." He looked from one to the other and saw he had gotten their attention. "What's good for you is good for me, agents. Don't screw this one up. Get out there and find the killer." He handed Scully an abbreviated case file and returned to his seat behind the desk. "You can study that on the way there and catch up on the story so far. Stop by the travel office and they should have your tickets ready. You're flying out today. You're dismissed." He turned his attention to the paperwork on his desk and didn't look up as they got up and quietly left his office. Chapter 2 --------- Seattle, WA FBI Field Office June 17, 6:00pm The Seattle FBI field office was bustling with activity when Mulder and Scully arrived that evening. They waited in the lobby for the agent in charge of the case. After a few minutes they were relieved when the door opened and a familiar face strode out to greet them. It had been a couple years since they had met Agent Willmore, after he was assigned to find them when they disappeared in the Seattle area. He had done an excellent job, not only finding and rescuing them, but helping them finish their own investigation. He had gotten entangled in things no one outside the X File team had ever encountered. From that he probably knew better than anyone did the kinds of things they had to deal with, but he handled it professionally and kept his mouth shut. Both of them respected him for that. "Agent Willmore, how have you been?" Mulder reached out to shake his hand first, intercepting Willmore's move towards Agent Scully. Willmore couldn't help but feel it was a protective move on Mulder's part, since subtlety wasn't Mulder's strong suit. "Fine, fine. I've been hearing about you two. You always seem to be in the thick of things. That was quite a mess in Dallas, and I heard you were in the middle of it." At the mention of Dallas, Willmore noticed Mulder's eyes shot over to meet Scully's, a look that told him a lot more had gone on there than they were going to tell him about. "We were there," Mulder nodded, finally dropping his hand and allowing him to move on to greet Scully, though his eyes never left Willmore. "Well, we're looking forward to helping you with this case, Agent Willmore. I hope we can be of some assistance." Scully was already determined to be on her best behavior for this case, but finding Willmore in charge had brightened her spirits considerably. During their last encounter she had found him to be flexible, resourceful, and persistent. "We appreciate the help. The medical examiner has the last two victims in cold storage waiting for you. You can start on them tonight or wait until morning if you want." He turned to Mulder. "I need you to help us canvas the street tonight looking for anyone who knew the latest victim, a transient. We're hoping someone will have gotten a glimpse of the killer. I wouldn't ask you to, I know you're here to profile the killer, but we're short-handed this week. We've got some other big things going down around here, and we're spread thin." Mulder nodded. "I can help you do that. When do we start?" "Well, you and Agent Scully might want to go find some dinner and meet me back here in.. oh, say about an hour?" He looked at Agent Scully again. "If you don't want to start the medical exams tonight you're welcome to join us on the street search too." "Actually, we had a bite on the plane. I'd like to get started on the examinations. If you can just give me directions to the Medical Examiner's office, I'll head over there now." Willmore went to the front desk and spoke to the secretary for a moment and came back with a one-page map and directions for her. "There you go, Agent Scully. Here's my card also, so if you need to contact me for any reason, use my cell number." She took them with a quick thank you, and after looking over the card quickly, stuffed it in her pocket. She held a hand out to Mulder and he covered it with his own for an instant. Their investigations in Dallas and their subsequent, involuntary, trip to Antarctica had reminded them how precious life was, and how quickly it could be taken from them, and served to drive them closer together than ever. Now, every little touch was an embrace, even just the way he allowed his fingers to glide over hers as he dropped the rental keys in her hand. She closed her hand around them as he moved his hand away, suppressing a flood of warmth that threatened to color her cheeks, determined to keep her mind on work. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second, a warning look from Scully. They had had a long argument on the plane about this case taking precedence over the X Files. Mulder thought it was someone's way of preventing them from resuming their more important investigations. Her opinion had been that they had better concentrate and be on their best behavior here, live up to Skinner's expectations, and that it would grease the wheels back at headquarters for the ongoing support of their investigations. Somewhere over the Midwest he had finally agreed, reluctantly, and assured her he would be on his best behavior. Now, as she caught his eye, he gave her a slight nod, assuring her of his continued cooperation. It happened so fast, Willmore didn't even notice. Without further comment she left the lobby, leaving Mulder and Willmore alone. "Well, would you like to look over the case files until it's time to head out?" Willmore finally said, leading him back to where the offices were. "Sure. I had the chance to look over an abbreviated file Assistant Director Skinner gave us, but it'll be good to start reading up on the details." "Make yourself comfortable in here," Willmore led him to a conference room and left him there for a moment, returning with a pile of folders. "These are the complete files. If you need anything, my office is straight across the hall." "Thanks," Mulder took off his jacket and sat down, putting on a pair of reading glasses and pulling the first folder on the pile down to look at. Willmore watched him for a moment, thinking he had expected a little more when he was told he'd be working with Mulder and Scully again. Their behavior had been positively subdued compared to how they'd been last time he met them. Since Mulder seemed set, he returned to his office to finish up some paperwork. Chapter 3 --------- King County Medical Examiner's Office June 17, 8:10pm Scully looked at the cadaver that was laid out in front of her. An assistant, a young medical student named Tom Peterson, had been assigned to her, and was busy arranging the corpse on the table, placing a form under the head to hold it at the correct angle for the autopsy. In his late-twenties, clean cut with sandy blond hair, he was the stereotypical student, very serious, trying to be professional beyond his years. Scully enjoyed his attention, feeling like an instructor again as he hung on her every word, carefully watching her every move. The victim, an approximately 45 year old white male, covered in tattoos, had been a transient. Presumably he was the one Mulder would be out asking about this evening, looking for someone who had known this man well enough to know who he was last seen with, what he had been doing. She thought about all the forgotten people living on the street, the poorest of the poor, the mentally ill, the addicted, the runaways. They were easy pickings for serial killers, desperate and willing to follow anyone for the promise of a little money, drugs, or whatever they craved. This man had obviously gotten a lot more than he bargained for. From the track marks on his arms she guessed he was heavily drug addicted, though she would have to wait for the tests from the lab to know what he was addicted to. Not that it mattered much now, except to add to their knowledge of the killer's methods. Whatever the killer had lured him with, instead of receiving money or drugs, he had been subjected to unnecessary surgeries. "The killer's technique seems to be very professional," Scully said for the microphone hanging above the table, recording her findings so they could be transcribed later. "The cuts look like they were made with a scalpel, neat and straight with fairly sharp edges, indicating the blade was dulled. The cuts are sutured, and all three show evidence of infection, though in varying degrees of severity. The severity of the infection may indicate the age of the incisions." Peterson stood on the other side of the table, watching her every move as she probed the incisions and reported her conclusions. "What do you make of that?" He pointed at the oldest sutured incision, the one that showed the greatest level of infection. "Well," she pried at it with a probe, "Disturbingly, these show signs of beginning healing, indicating the victim was kept alive for several days while this was being done to him. I'd say this incision is as much as a week old." She used a large magnifying lamp to closely examine each cut once again, thinking about the purpose of each, and the motivations of the surgeon who did them. She carefully continued her external examination of the body, lifting the arms and examining the length of them. She stopped at two small circular marks, approximately one centimeter each, separated by an inch. She pulled the magnifying lamp over them, examining them under the bright light. "Tom, can you get some photos of this?" She pointed it out to him. He nodded and retrieved the camera, carefully photographing the marks from a couple different angles. "What do you think those were caused by?" Peterson asked, stepping back from the table to give her room. "They look like stun gun burns, though I can't be sure yet." She continued examining the body, but encountered no other abnormalities hidden among the tattoos and track marks. Finally she stepped back to make some notes in her personal observation log. "That concludes the external exam, Tom. Go ahead and make the 'Y' incision and we'll begin the internal exam." End Part 1 of 7 Title - Procedures (2 / 7) Author - Stephanie Roberts E-Mail - stefrobrts@aol.com Chapter 4 --------- Somewhere in Seattle June 17, 8:00PM The first thing she realized as she drifted out of the dreamless sleep was that her arms hurt. They stung and ached with a deep pain that frightened her as soon as she became aware of it. She struggled to open her eyes, and realized that the light over her table had been turned off, leaving the room dark except for the light over the boy's table, about ten feet away from hers. The table that had had the dead man on it was empty, and she wondered how much time had passed since she was awake. She turned her head enough to see the boy, but kept her eyes squinted nearly shut. She didn't want to attract the attention of the man who held her captive. She was sure that if she lifted the sheet to look, there would be two ugly wounds on her arms, which he had done with his bare hands. She could feel the sheet irritating her where it touched her arms, but she tried not to think about it. She saw the boy stirring, and her heart suddenly filled with hope. Maybe the two of them together could fight their way out of here. She watched as he reached up and wiped his face with his hand, and then looked around the room. For a moment they made eye contact and stared at each other, like two lost people running into each other in the woods, all desperation and hope at having found a kindred soul. Before they could exchange any words the door to the room opened, and the man stepped in. Wearing a long lab coat, which went all the way to his knees, he looked very doctor-like as he strode across the room to the boy's table. She closed her eyes, and listened as his footsteps stopped a short distance away from her. Feeling sure he wasn't looking at her, she opened her eyes just enough to see what he was doing. His back was to her as he stood over the young man on the neighboring table. "So, how are you today? I see you're awake." There was no concern in the man's voice, just a cold curiosity. The boy looked back at him, but said nothing. "Come on, you were so talkative when I found you. Can't you do any better than that?" He pulled the sheet back and roughly pulled the boy into a sitting position. "Come on, speak." He was sounding impatient. Finally the boy opened his mouth, but only a guttural gurgling sound came out. His eyes filled with shock and his hands reached up to his throat, his mouth moving noiselessly. His fingers found the stitches at the base of his throat and his expression turned to horror. The man laughed, a terrible, grating sound. "Yeah, no more of that from you. After those names you called me, I thought you needed something a little more drastic than just washing your mouth out with soap." The boy coughed and gurgled, willing his voice to work, hoping this was just a terrible dream. Nothing but a wet sputtering came out. The boy's expression shifted to hatred, and his eyes were locked on the man. He jumped off the table with surprising speed, lunging for the man's face. He grabbed him and dug his fingers into the soft fleshy skin of his cheeks and gouged at his eyes, though his attacker had already pulled his fingernails out, thinking ahead. He knew this one was going to be a fighter, and he had planned on goading him a little, just to add to the fun. Still, he was thrown off by the attack. He fell backwards, his arms pinwheeling in an attempt to keep his balance, which failed. On the floor, the boy jumped on top of him, beating him, scratching at him with his soft, nailless, fingers, all the time making an inhuman hissing noise that seemed to come straight from his gut. No doubt it would have been a scream, if there had still been vocal chords to mold it into one. The man writhed under him, surprised by the ferocity of the attack. The girl was just getting up the courage to jump off the table and join in the fray when she saw the man's hand slip into his coat pocket and pull out a scalpel. She froze in place. The man brought the scalpel up between them and slashed a deep diagonal cut across the boy's chest. He stiffened and froze in pain for an instant before forcing himself to continue. He grabbed at the hand wielding the scalpel, trying to stop its motion, but the man was healthier and stronger than he looked. The boy, sensing there was no way out for him, began clawing at the man's face with a new hatred and desperation, even as his blood was pouring out onto the killer's body under him. The man pulled back and stabbed the scalpel deep into the boy's chest, just below the ribs, angled up towards the heart, and twisted it with both hands. The boy froze in pain, a curious look coming over his face, as if he was surprised by this new sensation. He released the doctor's face, his hands shaking and pawing at the air for an instant, his full body weight on the madman's hands as the scalpel dug deep into his vital organs. With a shiver that coursed through his entire body, he went limp. The killer threw the body off to the side and jumped to his feet. In a panic, adrenaline pulsing through him, he tried to brush the boy's blood off his coat, but only succeeded in wiping it around with his hands. There was too much of it. Panting, he looked at the blood pooled on the floor and still draining from the boy, and shook his head, started to turn away and then turned back, as if he didn't know what to do. He stomped over to the boy's body and stood over it. "What did you do that for?" He screamed at the body, and stomped his foot, splashing in the expanding puddle of blood. "You weren't supposed to do that. That's not supposed to happen, God damn it!" He wiped a bloody hand through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead, slicking it with the blood. Putting his hands on his hips, he paced around again, coming back to stand over the body. "I'm supposed to save you, heal you. God damn it!" He paced around again, never taking his eyes off the boy for long. Finally he turned and stomped out the door, leaving bloody footprints behind in a wet, crimson trail. When the door clicked shut, the girl took a deep shuddering breath, having been afraid to make a noise until then. She pulled the sheet up over her head, and tried not to make a sound as she lay shaking on the table and cried. Chapter 5 --------- Super 8 Motor Inn June 18, 1:00 AM Willmore pulled up to the motor inn and waited with his engine idling while Mulder reached into the back seat for his jacket and got out. "Thanks for the lift, Willmore," he said, scanning the parking lot for their rental car. He spotted it further down the parking row, and felt a sense of relief. "No problem. Good job tonight, Mulder. Maybe by morning we'll have a drawing of the guy to start showing around." Mulder nodded at him and walked to his motel room, digging for his keys as Willmore pulled away. Willmore drove around the parking lot and was waiting to pull out onto the street when he looked into his rearview mirror and noticed Mulder was knocking on the door of a unit with darkened windows. A light came on and the door opened for him, and he slipped inside. Willmore stared at the door for a moment, wondering if there was something un-partnerly going on there. There was no question Scully was attractive, but the last time he had seen her, he wouldn't exactly have described her as a bubbling personality. If anything, he had found her serious, business-like, and professional in the extreme, exactly the opposite of wisecracking Mulder, and a little bit unnerving. He couldn't imagine anything going on with those two. But still... Another car pulled up behind him in the driveway, and with a honk, prompted him to get moving, but he stocked away the bit of information for later. ***** "Did I wake you," Mulder asked, walking into Scully's room and depositing his briefcase on the table. She shook her head and rubbed a hand over her eyes, blinking in the light from the nightstand lamp she had switched on when he knocked. She was wearing a soft, silky- looking pajama top and bottom, her feet were bare and her hair was tousled. He couldn't hide the smile it brought to him, and it carried over into his voice. "You look like I woke you." He left his jacket and tie on the table as well and quietly joined her, sitting on the edge of the bed. "No. I just was lying down, wondering how your night was going." "We found a guy who knew the victim and saw him with a man a couple weeks ago. The witness is with the police artist now making a sketch of the suspect. The last time anyone saw the victim he was going with this guy to do some work to earn money for his drug habit. " "Well, unless 'guinea pig' is a line of work, I'd say things didn't turn out the way he expected." She flopped back on the bed, gathering a pillow up and pulling it under her head. Mulder stretched out lazily beside her, and she rolled onto her side so she could see him. He tried to ignore the way her top rode up on her, exposing her soft, flat stomach. He kept his mind off of it by keeping the conversation on business. "Well, don't keep me in suspense. What did you find?" "The victim had had multiple operations performed, the incisions were partially healed, indicating he was kept alive for at least a week after the first operation." She rolled onto her back and ran a hand through her hair, thinking about the autopsy. "He had a number of procedures done to him, including removal of the kidneys, spleen, a portion of the liver, and complete removal of the testicles. It might be a black market body parts scheme, but the organs taken weren't generally the kinds in demand for transplants or even for medical study. It was almost like they were removed just to see how long the patient could survive without them." Mulder grimaced. "I read over the other autopsy reports for the first six victims. They were all similar. There were multiple operations performed on each. As many as four operations per victim." "The thing that bothered me most was I couldn't find any other signs of abuse. There were no marks on wrists or ankles from being bound, no bruises from beatings. The only thing I found was two small burn marks that looked like they were made by a stun gun. I'm hoping the lab can find some traces of whatever was used as an anesthetic for the operations, since that might help us track the killer down." "Did you determine a cause of death?" "I don't have a conclusive cause of death yet, though it was cardiac in nature. The victim was suffering from a severe infection caused by unsanitary conditions during the surgeries, or poor post-op care, which could have caused heart failure, depending on the toxicity of the infection." "What kind of person does this," he asked, mostly to himself. "A very talented one. I'd say he's a doctor, almost certainly a surgeon. He did a very neat job of all his work." She yawned, trying to hide it behind her hand, but Mulder could tell she was beat for the day. Back home it was almost four AM, so he supposed she had a right to be tired. He laid there for a couple minutes, thinking about the case, and he noticed her eyes drifted shut, her lips parted just a little, her breathing slow and steady. He weighed his options; return to his room and work on the case or lay here all night watching her. It was a close call. Finally, he got up and collected his things off the table. Awakened by the shifting of the bed, she rolled onto her side and drowsily watched him, but didn't move to get up. "Ok, I'll see you for breakfast and we can discuss the rest of it. Come lock the door behind me," he said quietly, not wanting to wake her fully. She nodded and got up, slowly padding barefoot across the worn carpet to the door. He looked down at her and pulled her into his arms before leaving, lingering just a moment, enjoying the still new sensation of her arms around his waist and her body held close. He bent down and laid a gentle kiss on her lips, prompting a sleepy smile from her. "g'night, Mulder," she finally mumbled, pushing him towards the door. Outside he waited until he heard her throw the deadbolt on the door, and then returned to his own room. Maybe this case was going to be more challenging than he had anticipated, he thought. A surgeon for a killer, probably very intelligent, covering his tracks. Mulder was already well into theories for his profile when he turned on his laptop and sat down to type. Chapter 6 ------- Mercer Island, WA June 18, 7:00am "Thank you for the help, Dr. Winston." Tom Peterson picked up his books and gathered his papers back into his backpack. "I really appreciate you answering these questions, especially so early." "It's no problem, Tom. You're a good man, I think you'll make a good doctor someday." Winston picked up the coffee cups from the table and slowly walked them to the kitchen. His house was large and lavish, the result of many years of being a well paid neuro-surgeon. Until his hands had begun to shake a couple of years ago, he had been one of the most respected surgeons at Harborview, the pride of the Seattle medical community. When he had lost his job, with it had gone his standing in the medical community and his young trophy-wife. Now he lived off his savings and doddered around his house alone, trying not to break anything, occasionally getting visits from some of the young students he had taken under his wing before his abrupt retirement. Tom was one of his last, and without a doubt his favorite. "Still, sir, I just want you to know how much your mentoring means to me." "It's my way of giving back. How's your job going?" Winston carefully rinsed the coffee cups and gently placed them on the drainer next to the sink. He moved slowly and methodically to avoid dropping them with his gently shaking hands. "Excellent. Of course, I have you to thank for that too. I would never have gotten the appointment to the MEs office without your recommendation." Winston nodded his head and smiled, though it was almost hidden behind his thick salt and pepper beard. He led the way back out to the living room. "The local police have called in the FBI to help them catch this serial killer they're after. I got assigned to assist the FBI's Forensic Pathologist they brought in from DC." Peterson was nearly bursting with pride. "Excellent. That's a good way to get noticed. Maybe you will join the FBI some day, if your interest truly lies there." "I was questioning it, watching her autopsy those victims, but I think it's my main interest. I want to help the victims get the justice they deserve." "That's noble of you. What have you found out from these victims?" "The killer has been doing medical experiments on them. They haven't determined an exact cause of death yet, though." "Well, keep after it. There's always a cause." They walked to the front door, and Winston held it open. "Thanks for running those errands for me last night, Tom. I can't get out much anymore, and I appreciate the help." "It was no problem. Thank you for letting me use your car again. That's a hell of a machine. They don't make them like that anymore. What is it again, a '67?" "1968. The best year for the Camaro in my opinion. I just wish I could still enjoy it. I'm glad to see it hit the road now and again though." He looked down at his hand, lying on the doorknob, shaking vigorously of it's own accord, and frowned. It was like a curse, he thought. First it ran off his career, then his wife, and now it waved like a flag, telling everyone who could see that he was a doddering old man. "Well, have a good day. Come again soon, Tom. I enjoy the company." The younger man smiled and walked out to the driveway, shaded from the morning light by the tall trees surrounding the drive. He waved as he got in his dilapidated Honda and drove away. Chapter 7 --------- Super 8 Motel June 18, 8:00am It was a brilliant, blue-sky morning, pacific-northwest style. The air was cool, with just a hint of moisture, and the smell of the sea wafted in off Puget Sound, bringing to mind fishing boats and shipyards. It was mornings like this that made Agent Willmore appreciate living in Seattle. They were almost enough to make him forget the side of the city he was forced to deal with everyday. Almost. He took a deep breath and knocked on the motel room door. "Who is it?" Mulder's voice shouted from the other side. "Willmore." After a moment he heard the lock click and the door swung open. Mulder was still wearing the same suit Willmore had left him in last night, but the tie was gone and the collar was undone. He had on his reading glasses again, and Willmore could see his laptop open on the wrinkled, still-made bed, making him wonder where he'd spent the night. "Well, you're an early riser," Willmore commented as Mulder stepped aside so he could enter. Mulder pulled off his glasses, tossing them down next to the laptop, and rubbed his eyes. "Actually, I got going on the profile last night and didn't go to bed. After I talked to Agent Scully about her findings, I wanted to get right on it while I had some ideas to jot down." He shut down the computer and disappeared into the bathroom. After a few minutes he came out, changed his shirt and selected a tie from his suitcase. "Good enough," he said, glancing in the mirror. "Lets go. Can we get some coffee on our way to the office?" He picked up the laptop and had his hand on the door before Willmore could react. "Uh, yeah, sure. What about Agent Scully?" He stammered. "She left for the ME's office an hour ago. She's still running on Eastern Time, you know. Just give her a cup of coffee in the morning and off she goes." He smirked at him. "Let's get going. She'll meet us at the office when she's done." "OK, but we aren't going to the office." Willmore said quickly. Mulder looked at him surprised, a suspicious caution flashing over his features. "There's been another victim discovered down by Boeing Field. The scene is secured and we're going down there to check it out." Mulder's face fell. "The victims are being found with an increasing frequency. He must be feeling more confident. It's almost guaranteed he's going to leave an important clue, get sloppy. Maybe we'll get lucky this time." "I hope so," Willmore said, leading him out to the car. "At this rate he's going to surpass the Green River Killer for the area's most infamous serial killer, and I don't plan to stand by and watch him set that record." End Part 2 of 7 Title - Procedures (3 / 7) Author - Stephanie Roberts E-Mail - stefrobrts@aol.com Chapter 8 --------- Boeing Field June 18, 9:45AM With an earsplitting whine the jet plane lifted off the tarmac and pointed it's nose to the sky, thundering over the heads of the assorted FBI agents and Seattle Police gathered just past the security fence at the end of the runway. Mulder looked up at it, annoyed, covering the mouthpiece of his cell phone and waiting for it to get far enough away for him to speak again. "Scully, can you hear me?" He shouted into the phone, shooting another annoyed look at the plane. "OK, here, talk to Willmore, he'll explain how to get out here. It's just off Interstate 5, south of where you are. You shouldn't have any problem finding it." He handed the phone to Willmore. After being stuck in traffic for the better part of an hour, they had arrived to find the police investigators were still examining the crime scene. The police had already been there for several hours, and they hung back out of the way and waited for the tedious job of documenting the area and collecting initial evidence to be finished. "Scully's on her way. I told her a route that should help her avoid most of the traffic. She should be here in a half-hour if she doesn't get lost." Mulder nodded, but said nothing, looking toward where the corpse was laid out in the tall grass. He hadn't gotten close enough to see it yet, but he knew where it was. It was the center of attention, after all. Too bad, considering the victims had so far all come from the fringes of society, it was probably the most attention this guy had ever gotten. The sun had begun to beat down on them, and Mulder had already ditched his suit jacket in favor of rolled-up shirtsleeves. He was grateful to discover Willmore had an extra pair of sunglasses in his glove box, so while the police did their work, Mulder and Willmore leaned against the car and looked the part of Feds waiting their turn. Willmore was silent for a minute, but he was never good at that, keeping quiet, that was. "So what's your profile looking like so far?" he finally asked. Mulder was quiet for a minute, thinking. "Well, we're fairly certain we're looking for a male, just because of the sheer strength needed to haul around the victims we've found so far. Scully noted substantial technical expertise in the procedures performed on the victims, which would indicate someone close to the medical profession, probably a surgeon. It's unlikely he's currently practicing, or he would be satisfying his desires to operate in other ways. As it is, he cannot fill those needs without capturing 'patients' from the fringes of society. Because of the skill level I'm thinking it might be someone who's recently lost his license, or a medical student. I've got a lot of other theories, but I'm waiting to talk to Scully before I settle on those. There's a lot to be learned by examining how he chose the victims, what he used to lure them, and why and how he finally killed them." "Didn't you talk to her last night after you got back to the hotel?" "Yeah, but she fell asleep before she could fill me in on everything she found, and this morning she was eager to get back to the ME's Office and check something out, so she wasn't in the mood to talk." Willmore was quiet for a second. "You're pretty close to her, aren't you?" He phrased the question as a statement. He saw Mulder smile, his eyes hidden behind the sunglasses, still watching the investigators combing the area around the body. "She's my partner, Willmore." "Well, for example, could I ask her out if I wanted to?" He was determined to weasel his way around to getting Mulder to confirm his suspicions that something was going on there. Instead of the jealous reaction he had hoped for though, Mulder just laughed. "You can try anything you want, Willmore, but remember, she's armed." A policeman came over to them, interrupting them. "You the Feds?" They both nodded, inadvertently moving in synch. The policeman looked at them, a little nervous. "Well, they're ready for you over there," he gestured back to the crime scene. Mulder ducked under the police tape and stepped carefully through the now trampled knee-high grass, following a path broken by the earlier investigators, and stood over the body of the latest victim. Number Nine, he thought, a cold designation for someone's child. He looked at the body of the young man, probably only fourteen or fifteen years old, laid out naked on the ground in a peaceful repose, like a body in a casket. His body showed evidence of sutured incisions in several different places, including one on the throat, but unlike the other victims, this one had been badly cut up before death. A long cut crossed his chest and abdomen, and a stab wound below the ribs looked like a fatal blow. The killer had attempted to clean off all the blood, but there had obviously been a lot of it, and it was smeared all over the body. Mulder took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. His phone rang and he snatched it from the clip on his belt, glad for the excuse to walk away from the crime scene. The trampled grass crunched under his feet and brushed his pant legs as he moved away from the rest of the officers, who were gathered by the edge of the grass making casts of tire tracks in the soft dirt. "Mulder." "Mulder, it's me. I'm stuck in traffic. Looks like construction. How's it going there?" "It looks like the latest victim is a young male, fourteen or so. Same as the others. He's been subjected to several surgeries, all of which are neatly sewn up, and carefully laid out in a nice funeral- style pose. The major difference seems to be he was badly cut up and stabbed, probably the cause of death." He tried to keep his voice sarcastically light, but it had a frustrated edge to it. He stopped and looked at the ground, one hand on his hip, one clutching the cell phone to his ear. He closed his eyes. "Mulder, are you ok?" He stood still for a second, thinking. "I'm fine, Scully. I hate profiling." He spoke quietly and looked back over his shoulder to where Willmore was examining the area around the body with a police detective, pointing and looking at the investigator's notes regarding evidence they had gathered. "I know, Mulder. Just hang in there through one more. We'll make everyone happy back in DC and get back to our work." He thought he could hear her smiling at him on the other end of the phone, and he liked the way she said 'our work'. "Did you finish your second exam?" He changed the subject and began walking back to the corpse. "No, we put it back in the fridge. I'll finish this afternoon. Oh, the traffic's starting to move. I'll see you in ten, Mulder." He heard the phone click off before he was ready, and he suddenly felt very alone. He clipped the phone back onto his belt and squatted down next to the boy's body, wondering how the mind of the killer worked, what kind of fantasies he had satisfied by performing these operations. Another jet roared low overhead, or maybe it was the same one making a second pass. Either way, it drowned out all other sounds and Mulder closed his eyes, thinking about what kind of mind you would have to have to do this to a boy. How did he choose them? There had only been male victims so far, perhaps the good doctor was homosexual, or abused as a child by a male relative. All had been picked up off the street. All had been people who wouldn't be missed. And what about cutting them up and then closing the wounds? He didn't need to open his eyes to see the carefully stitched sutures on the boy's body. Was he practicing, taking revenge, trying to help them somehow, playing with them like a cat with a mouse, keeping them alive until he tired of them? How did he subdue them? How did he keep them sedated? Where did he get the drugs to anesthetize them? Why did he tire of his victims and kill them after taking care of them for days? Why had he killed this one in such an obvious way? Was he escalating the violence of the fantasy he was playing out, or had something gone wrong? Mulder's mind tossed the questions out and tried to answer them, one after the other, until he was completely absorbed in the details and the process of catching, hiding, mutilating and killing, forgetting where he was. The images rolled around in his head and he tried to organize them and make some sense of them, trying to put together how the killer's mind worked. Trying to predict what he would do next. Ten minutes later Scully arrived and saw the other officers gathered in a small group in the tall grass adjacent to the security fence at the end of the runway. She walked over to them, expecting to find her partner but only recognized Willmore. "Agent Willmore, where's Agent Mulder?" She noticed all the officers were looking towards the same place off in the tall grass, past the yellow ribbons, quietly talking among themselves, and occasionally gesturing in that direction. "Over there." Willmore pointed where everyone was looking. Concerned, Scully hurried through the grass, following the tamped down path, only to find Mulder squatting down next to the body of a naked boy. His hands hung limply between his knees and his eyes were clenched shut behind the dark sunglasses. She said his name and put a hand on his shoulder. He startled, opening wild eyes to look at her as if she were a stranger. He suddenly jumped up and began moving backwards, away from the corpse, away from her. He moved so quickly he turned, stumbled, and fell to his knees. He was quickly back on his feet and staggered a little further away before stopping, leaning over and resting his hands on his knees, breathing hard as if awakening from a nightmare. Willmore appeared next to Scully, surprising her. She was still watching Mulder with concern, but she spared a worried glance at Willmore, which was enough to encourage him to talk. "He came over here about ten minutes ago, and he didn't move until now. He wouldn't respond to anyone talking to him. It was like he was in a trance. It was..." He struggled for the word. "Spooky?" she finished the thought for him. "Well, yeah. What the hell's going on?" "He's just doing what he needs to do, Willmore." She said cryptically, and walked away to join her partner. Chapter 9 --------- Seattle FBI Field Office June 18, 3:00PM Mulder peered through his glasses at the laptop's screen, hit the backspace key a few times and continued typing. He didn't appear to notice Willmore watching him from the doorway, instead shuffling through his notes. There was something about the victims. They had all been picked up near Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle, a seedy place, a good place to pick up people who wouldn't be missed. He returned to his keyboard, organizing and evaluating the details he hoped would lead them to the killer. Willmore couldn't stand being ignored anymore. "Agent Mulder?" "Yes, Willmore, what can I do for you?" He didn't look up from the laptop, hoping the younger agent would leave if he made himself unapproachable enough. He knew his behavior at the crime scene was the talk of the office, but hoped a thorough profile would erase any question of his abilities. On top of that, he was exhausted from skipping sleep last night and weary from thinking about the vicious mutilations all day. He was in no mood to deal with anyone else. "How's the profile going?" "I think we're close to finishing it. I should have it done by morning." "I'd like to call a meeting to present it to the troops. We just finished an Asian gang bust down in Tacoma and the Director is adding those agents to our case. That'll be ten more agents we can use to hunt for this guy." Mulder looked up at him, realizing that none of this was related to his behavior this morning, and thought that perhaps he'd underestimated Willmore. "Set the meeting for 8:00 am and I'll present my profile then. You can fill them in on the rest of the case." "What's it shaping up to look like?" Willmore sat on the edge of the table, looking at the notes Mulder had scribbled on a yellow pad. "Well," Mulder sat back and linked his hands behind his head, stretching. "What I try to look for is some pattern in what the killer is doing. Serial killers tend to perform the same ritual over and over again, playing out some fantasy scene, with the unfortunate victim cast in a part that gives the killer complete control over them. We can see these patterns in the way this killer is picking out people who won't be missed, picking them up from the same area every time, torturing them until they die from the mutilations he performs, and then he finds another victim almost immediately, or maybe even concurrently." "It doesn't seem like it should be hard to find this guy." "Except for the fact that most serial killers fall into the top eighty percent of the population, intelligence-wise, and some can even be sociable and charming, so they don't stand out. This killer lives to perform his fantasies, doing whatever needs to be done in the outside world to allow him to continue his covert activities. They often hold down jobs, have families, blend into the community. This guy seems to have medical knowledge, so we have that to go by. We have a rough description from the guy we found last night, and a description of the car. I'd say we're well on our way." Willmore nodded, "I'm running the car info now, and I hope we have some names to start checking tomorrow after the briefing, if nothing else comes up. I think your profile will be invaluable, though. I'm glad they sent you two out to help us. Catching this bastard is my number one priority." He returned to his office. Mulder had barely begun typing again when his cell phone rang, chattering in the large, empty conference room. "Mulder, it's me." Scully's voice was a welcome comfort. "What have you got?" "Something weird," she said, mysteriously. Mulder smiled. He had been hoping for this. "Well, don't be a tease. What is it?" There was a pause on the other end of the line. "We found a handprint burned into the arm of the boy we found today." "Burned?" "Well, yeah. I think it's an electrical burn, but I've never seen anything like it." She muffled the phone and he barely heard her giving orders to someone on the other end. "Thanks, Tom. Are you still there, Mulder?" "Oh, yeah, I wouldn't miss this." "I'm pulling the other bodies we still have here out to take a look. It made me think, maybe we missed something. The burns on the other victims may have been faded due to the condition of the bodies. They've been in cold storage for quite a while. I'm thinking the cause of death on these other victims might be electrocution, like a low-current electrical charge strong enough to upset the heart beat, but not leave the kinds of burns you normally see with, oh say, power line accidents. Kind of like a de-fibrillator - but in this case it would be a fibrillator." "..but in the shape of a hand?" "Well, there was that mark that looked like a stun-gun burn on the body I examined yesterday." He could hear her mulling it over, treading carefully with her words. "Maybe this is all related. I'll let you know after we look back over it. Plus I haven't even looked at victim number seven yet. Now that we know what to look for, maybe we can find something there." "Alright, well, call me when you get something. I'm finishing up the profile for Willmore. He wants to present it to the team in the morning. Let me know if there's anything I should add." "You'll be the first to know, Mulder." There was a clanging in the background and he heard the phone being muffled again, and her voice scolding someone. "Gotta' go," she said with an exasperation in her voice she usually reserved for him and clicked the phone off before he could answer. Chapter 10 --------- King County Medical Examiner's Office June 18, 8PM Agent Willmore and Agent Mulder strode into the Medical Examiner's office, flashed their FBI IDs at the front desk, and were directed to one of the autopsy bays in the back of the building. Mulder looked through the glass window in the door of the room before entering, spotting Scully and a young man bent over a small pale body that was stretched out on a metal table. There were two other bodies on gurneys in the room as well, covered with sheets. "Looks like the place." Mulder pushed the door open and an indescribably evil smell, something between feces and vomit, or a combination of the two immediately assaulted them. They cringed, swallowed hard, and tried to ignore it, having been exposed to it many times before. When they entered, the sandy-haired young man turned around and stared at them for a moment, while Scully barely spared the men a glance. "Mulder, Willmore, this is Tom Peterson, my assistant," she said, her voice muffled as she bent back over the corpse. The men all nodded at each other in greeting, and Peterson retrieved a small jar of vapo-rub from the counter, offering it to the others to kill the smell. They gladly accepted. Mulder and Willmore walked around to the other side of the table to get a better look at what Scully was doing. She was working over the body of the boy they had found that morning. They had already performed the autopsy on it, so the torso was disconcertingly sunken, and a 'Y' of thick stitching that reached from the shoulders to the groin held it closed. Hunched over the body, she was examining a dim red smudge on its arm, peering through a large magnifying lens. "Look at this," she said, without looking up. She moved aside so Mulder could get close enough to look through the magnifying lens at the burn. Willmore squeezed in between them, putting a hand on Scully's shoulder for balance as he tried to get a look at the burn. She shot him a glance that made him quickly remove his hand and back off a little, waiting his turn. Mulder peered through the lens. It was clearly a five-fingered hand, nothing too weird about it, except that it was burned into the slightly blistered skin of a mutilated dead boy's arm. He gave a little snort of surprise, and she looked up at him, her blue eyes peeking out from behind the large plastic goggles. "So, we have a mad doctor, and he has some kind of stun-gun glove he uses to put his victims out of their misery?" Mulder shook his head, thinking that this guy was just getting harder and harder to profile. He stepped aside so Willmore could see. "I'm not even sure about the glove part, Mulder. I can almost make out the wrinkles in the attacker's palm in the blistered skin here," she took a probe off the tray and pointed out the marks burned into the arm. "I'm not sure how, but it looks to me like it was a bare hand that made this contact. I also found similar marks on the other victims. Even the mark I thought was caused by a stun gun looks to be fingertip marks burned into the skin. We're sending the bodies to the regional field office in Los Angeles. They have the facilities there to do a search for latent prints on the cadaver's skin." She paused, thinking. "Of course, this burn isn't the cause of death for this victim, the stab wound in the chest was, so why does this body have this burn on it, which looks to be at least a day old?" "Scully, you know what you're saying?" Mulder tried to get her to look him in the eye. Instead she looked thoughtfully at the corpse and nodded. "You're advocating something pretty unheard of here. Generally that's my job." "Well, don't get all defensive. I'm sure we'll figure this out and it'll have a reasonable explanation." She let out an exasperated little breath and her words didn't have the confidence they usually did. The reasonable explanations had been few and far between lately, but she didn't plan to give up completely. "Have you gotten anywhere?" "Well," he found a seat on a nearby counter while she began finishing up. "The witness we found worked with the department's police artist to make a rough drawing of the suspect. The most distinctive thing was a full beard and glasses, otherwise he was pretty vague, just saying it was a white male. He couldn't even guess at the age. He also said the man the victim left with was driving a nice classic camaro. And that he thought it was red. Which matches nicely with some carpet fibers that were found on the first body, which were from a manufacturer of auto carpets for the restoration industry." "A restored, red camaro. That doesn't narrow it down much." She said, stripping off her gloves and making some last minute observations in a notebook. "Worse than you think," Willmore added. "There are lots of classic cars in this area and the police are pretty forgiving about them not being registered, since they don't get used much. However, we got lucky since we got a call from a passerby that saw the camaro at Boeing Field last night. This guy knew his cars, and gave us a year and make to look for. He said it was a 1968 Rally-Sport. We're running the information through the police computers, maybe we'll get lucky." Willmore's cell phone chirped and he pulled it out of his coat pocket and walked out of the autopsy bay to answer it. A moment later he came back in, looking shaken. "That was one of the police detectives. They said a hooker they picked up near Pioneer Square tonight reported seeing our man. Two nights ago he picked up an underage girl who was working the same street as this woman. She identified her from pictures as a recent runaway; 14 year old Tina Alconi." He bit his lip and looked at the boy's body on the table before looking back up at the other agents. The determination in his eyes was doubled with this new information. "We've got to find this bastard." "Jesus," Mulder rubbed his eyes and stared at the floor, lost in thought. Scully pulled off her gloves with a snap and threw them away as she left the room to change back into street clothes. Her stomach churning at the thought. Now they would all have a cause, a specific person to save. A face and a name for the next victim, if they didn't get their act together quick. Willmore turned to Mulder, "I'm going to go back over the case, see if I can find anything we missed. You riding back with her?" He was eager to get out of the morgue. "Yeah, thanks for the ride." He reached over from his position on the countertop and grabbed Scully's notebook, rifling through it for more information. His mind was getting sluggish from lack of sleep, but he was haunted by the thought that they might not catch this guy, there was so little to go on. So far, all their work had amounted to a vague physical description, and a description of his car. He desperately wanted more. A few minutes later he looked up from the notebook to see Willmore and Peterson had both left, and he was alone in the cold autopsy bay with the bodies, the boy's body now modestly covered with a white sheet. He stared at it. It was just a young boy, why would anyone do these things to him? He shook his head. Value judgements would only cloud the issue. The killer had a different set of values to follow, and he needed to understand them if he was to get one step ahead. One step, that's all it would take, and now a little girl's life depended on it too. He shuddered to think that one morning soon, Willmore might call him out to look at her body, discarded in a heap on some lonely roadside. He cautiously slid off the counter and walked to the table, standing over the body, not wanting to lift the sheet. Suddenly the lights went off and the background hum of the room died down to complete silence. Mulder looked around and realized the only light was coming from the hallway, falling through the glass window in the door in a shaft, landing at the head of the table. He slowly looked back at the body, feeling certain he would see something different this time. But it was still just a dead boy under a sheet. He thought about this boy, unconscious, being operated on over and over again. He would have been unrestrained, but somehow incapacitated the whole time he was captive. Something had happened to make the killer attack and kill the boy, maybe he had fought back somehow. Either way, cutting someone up wasn't part of the killer's usual plan. Then he took the corpse to a peaceful place, somewhere with grass, outdoors, and carefully laid them out. It was all such a complex series of steps to follow, he wondered what joy it brought the mad doctor. Did he get his jollies from the operating, the killing, the careful disposition of the body? Maybe he required the whole process to satisfy him. Mulder stared at the still form under the sheet. "Mulder?" Scully returned, miraculously transformed once again from doctor to FBI investigator. She stopped, surprised to see her partner alone in the dark room, hovering over the body like a specter. She walked to his side and looked at the body for a moment before looking up at him. His face was in shadow but she could still see his haunted, tired eyes. She reached out for his hand and gently took it, drawing his attention to her. "The lights went out," he said weakly, stating the obvious. "Yeah, I see that. Come on. Let's get out of here. You look like you need some sleep." "What about him?" He indicated the body. "I'll get someone to take care of it. Let's go." She gently removed her notebook from her partner's other dangling hand and pulled on his arm just enough to get him moving, doing the math in her head to figure out how many hours he had been awake at this point. Too many, she thought, and if he didn't get some rest he was going to be more of a hindrance than a help tomorrow. End Part 3 of 7