From steiner@ns.acadiacom.net Wed Jan 15 10:14:09 1997 Summary: Parody. A winter cold finally gives Scully her chance to mess with Mulder's head. Rating: PG - language and situation. H - humor. Disclaimers: The X-Files, all characters therein, etc. belong to Chris Carter, Fox network, etc etc etc. Salinas does not, to my knowledge, have an evil research lab as this story claims. However, considering the travel problems I encountered there (some of which is reflected in this story), Salinas DESERVES an evil lab or two, in my opinion. Spoiler: Contains passing references to 4th season. SALINAS By Alloway (steiner@acadiacom.net) My first story, admittedly a bit of fluff. Comments welcome; be gentle. ********************* FBI Headquarters January 9, 1997 9:15 am. ********************* Mulder had called her a reindeer. Well, not as such, she amended. He had only made a few muttered comments about the 'Land of Lost Toys,' but Dana had experienced enough Rankin-Bass specials in her lifetime to know what he was really getting at. As she coughed, shivered, and blew her red (nosed reindeer, damn you, Mulder) and aching nose for the fourteenth time this morning--yes, he was counting, she noticed blearily--she mentally added this particular affront to all the others. The Hanging Up The Cell Phone thing. The Bolting To Foreign Countries Without Telling Her thing. And the Bambi thing. And the Detective White thing, and the Vampire Bimbo thing, and the Phoebe thing... The fact that her mental calculator was now showing all "E"s under the Mulder-owes-me column led her to one conclusion: she had had enough. And by God, it was high time that she, Dana Katherine Scully, did something about it. The tissue box she had been idly tumbling around came into focus and suddenly, she had a plan. "Forgive me, Lord," she whispered. "For I know *exactly* what I do." ********************* FBI Basement January 9, 1997 9:17 am. ********************* "Mulder," she said, using her most sensible voice. He didn't look up from his desk, but she knew she had his attention. "Mulder, what does the word 'containment' mean to you?" "Um," he answered. "Well, locking up something dangerous." "Such as?" "You know, deadly viruses, mutants, UFO secrets..." "That's what I thought too," she said. "So I'm wondering why this tissue box is promoting 'Trusted Containment.'" "Maybe you've got killer snot, Scully," he smirked. "Maybe I do," she said evenly. Ten minutes later Mulder casually scooped the box off her desk. "Scully, ever notice how they offer six kinds of tissue, in thirty different box patterns, so that they take up a whole supermarket aisle? Almost forcing you to buy them?" "Scully, ever notice this funny little barcode they have on the bottom of the box?" "Scully, ever heard about how many parasites there are in the human body? Literally millions of creatures floating around on us, even inside of us? What if some of them were...intelligent?" "Scully, why would a tissue company offer an '800' number for questions? What kind of questions could anyone possibly have about tissue paper?" Aha: finally, an opening she could run with. "Tell you what, Mulder, I'll give them a call and find out." Dana picked up the phone and dialed; the customer service person on the line started making pleasant 'thank you for calling' noises. Time to pull out all the stops. "You want to know *what*?" Dana said, trying for a tone of disbelief. "If it's *green*? Why would you want to know if it's--" The customer service person was making surprised squawking noises now; Dana let the receiver drop. "They hung up," she said. She spent the next few hours with her eyes closed, trying to soothe the headache that had decided to accompany the cold. Mulder, on the other hand, was doing all kinds of interesting things. File cabinets were flung open, folders were flipped; she even heard the whine of the projector being cranked up, twice. She opened her eyes after hearing Mulder put on his coat. "Look, I'm going to, uh, go up to the vending machines. Back in a few." "Hours? Days? Weeks?" "You're getting paranoid, Scully," he said, tucking the cell phone into his pocket. "I like that in a woman." ********************* Scully's Apartment January 10, 1997 Night ********************* The phone rang; she picked it up. "Still trying to decide between Cool Ranch and Barbecue?" she asked. "The answer is in Salinas, Scully," the voice from the cell phone said, between sneezes. "That's where the tissue factories are." "You're in Kansas?" "Uh, no. I'm trapped underground in the airport tram at Dallas. A little voice just came on and said 'this vehicle has now been shut down' and then the lights went off. There is a large woman in here who I think is trying to kill me." "Obviously part of the conspiracy," Dana said. "Or being mind-controlled by her mucus." "Always an option," she agreed. "So why are you calling?" "I seem to have picked up your cold. I figured you owed me some help, at least a little bedside manner..." "Gosh, Mulder, I think I'm losing you. Must be all that concrete." She punched the shutoff button. So that's what it felt like! Pretty nice. ********************* Scully's Apartment Later ********************* "I had it all wrong, Scully. The fact that Salinas is home to one of the most advanced experimental biotechnology labs in the country should have tipped me off." "So you're in Salinas now." "Uh, no. They tried to get us to Wichita a couple times, but the snowstorms were too bad to let us land. So they landed us in Tungsta." "*Tungsta*?" "Tulsa. Tulsa, Oklahoma. This cold is getting worse." "I'm sorry to hear that. How are they getting you to Wichita?" "Here comes the bus now." More sneezes and coughing. "Are buses supposed to have that much smoke coming out of them? Never mind. Anyway, what we have here isn't an invasion. It's a HARVEST." Suddenly he sniggered and the phone began making frantic clicking noises. "GOTCHA!" The sniggering trailed off, followed by the clicking. "Hey, what the--my off button isn't working." Dana bet that *hers* would work. But first..."Why don't you try collecting some samples for me to analyse? From a homogenous population, like, er, a busload of people." "If these people are being controlled, they won't be in the mood to cooperate." "So *make* them cooperate," she said. Time to try the button; yep, it worked all right. ********************* Scully's Apartment Much Later ********************* "...So after I posted bail I got a rental car, and all they had were Neons, but they said the snowstorm should be dying down soon..." ********************* Scully's Apartment Not Much Later ********************* "...I was really lucky that those vans full of born-again Christians saw me spinning off the road...Hang on a second, they're asking me something...Have I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my own *what*?"... ********************* Scully's Apartment Still Later ********************* "...So I've blown up the secret lab and destroyed all the files, but now the morphing Dobermans are after me. You still there Scully?" Silence. "Scully?...Partner?" A pause. Then, a Mulder-voice resigned but curiously hopeful: "Poopsie?" "I'm still here, Mulder. And call me *snookums*." "Are you, you know, naked?" "No." "Ah." "But WALTER is." Dana thought she heard whimpering, but maybe it was the dogs. A slow smile warmed her face as she clicked off the phone. ********************* Mulder's Apartment January 19, 1997 8:21 pm. ********************* A few more sentences, and Dana would be done typing the report. "Ironically, Agent Mulder uncovered the tailored flu virus leakage while he himself was suffering from its mind-altering effects. As I also suffered the terrible symptoms of this virus, I must emphasize that Agent Mulder's heroic actions by far outweigh the damage done to the Neon...and the tissue factories...and, well, Salinas..." "Scully!" The urgent cry from the other room interrupted her. Dana sighed; now that she had shaken off the virus, she was stuck watching over her partner--and his paranoid fantasies--until he too recovered. She padded over to the sofa, her eyes widening as she took in the sight of a sweating, writhing, nearly naked Mulder. "Dana," he panted. "I've been infected by the Sinus Vampires! I'm a danger to myself...to you...you *must* restrain me." Dana called up her mental calculator; did she have anything left in the Mulder-owes-me column? No. On the other hand... "I have handcuffs," she confirmed. ...She'd owe him one.